lU 


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f 


AN  ESSAY 

ON  THE  CIVILISATIONS  OF 
INDIA,  CHINA,  AND  JAPAN 


A  REPORT  MADE  TO  THE  TRUSTEES 

OF  THE  ALBERT  KAHN  TRAVELLING 

FELLOWSHIPS 


AN  ESSAY  ON  THE 

CIVILISATIONS  of  INDIA 
CHINA    ftr   JAPAN 

G.  LOWES  DICKINSON 


1915 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE   tf  CO. 
GARDEN  CITY,  NEW  YORK 


This  Essay  is  a  Report  of  the  author's 
travels  as  a  Fellow  of  the  Albert  Kahn  Travelling 
Fellowships  and  is  published  by  direction  of 
the  Albert  Kahn  Trustees. 


TO  THE  TRUSTEES   OF   THE   ALBERT 
KAHN  TRAVELLING  FELLOWSHIPS 

GENTLEMEN, 

I  have  the  honour  to  present  the  following 
report  of  my  travels  during  the  years  1912 
to  1913. 

Instead  of  describing  my  journey  in  detail 
I  have  thought  it  will  be  more  interesting  to 
offer  some  reflections  on  the  general  spirit  and 
character  of  the  civilisations  of  India,  China, 
and  Japan,  and  the  apparent  and  probable 
effects  upon  these  civilisations  of  contact  with 
the  West.  Any  conclusions  one  may  arrive 
at  on  a  subject  so  comprehensive  are,  of  course, 
of  the  most  tentative  and  hazardous  kind,  and 
what  I  set  down  here  is  rather  the  starting 
point  than  the  end  of  an  inquiry.  I  shall  not, 
however,  waste  time  and  space  in  constantly 
qualifying  and  apologising  for  my  statements ; 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

but  say  here,  once  for  all,  that  everything  put 
forward  is  provisional,  and  that  any  dog- 
matism of  form  is  merely  a  concession  to  the 
requirements  of  brevity. 

G.  LOWES  DICKINSON. 

KING'S  COLLEGE,  CAMBRIDGE. 
November  1913. 


AN  ESSAY  ON  THE 

CIVILISATIONS  OF  INDIA 

CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

PART  I.— INDIA 

THE  first  thing  I  have  to  note  is  that  the  East 
is  not  a  unity,  as  implied  in  the  familiar 
antithesis  of  East  and  West.  Between  India, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  China  or  Japan,  on  the 
other,  there  is  as  great  a  difference  as  between 
India  and  any  western  country.  The  contrast 
that  has  struck  me  is  that  between  India  and 
the  rest  of  the  world.  There  I  do  feel  a 
profound  gulf.  A  Chinese,  after  all,  is  not 
so  unlike  an  Englishman,  and  a  Japanese 
not  so  unlike  a  Frenchman.  But  a  Bengalee 
is  strangely  unlike  anybody  outside  India. 
While,  however,  the  East  is  not  a  unity,  the 
modern  West  is.  Throughout  Europe  and 
America  there  is  the  same  civilisation,  intel- 
lectual and  economic;  so  that,  to  a  philo- 
7 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

sophic  observer,  national  boundaries  there 
already  begin  to  appear  obsolete  and  irrelevant. 
On  the  other  hand,  this  modern  West  is  a  very 
recent  creation.  And  if  one  goes  back  in 
history  one  can  find  more  analogy  between 
East  and  West  than  now  appears.  Feudal 
Europe,  for  example,  was  in  many  respects 
similar  to  feudal  Japan;  and  a  mediaeval 
Christian  mystic  hardly  distinguishable  from 
a  contemporary  Indian  saint.  If,  therefore, 
we  contrast  East  and  West  we  shall  find  our 
contrast  breaking  down  at  every  point,  unless 
we  confine  the  term  East  to  India  (which  is 
absurd),  and  mean  by  the  West  (as  of  course, 
in  fact,  we  do)  the  West  of  the  last  century 
only.  And  the  contrast  between  that  West 
and  the  West  of  the  Middle  Ages  is  perhaps  as 
great  as  the  contrast  between  the  modern  West 
and  India.  I  think  it  best,  therefore,  not  to 
attempt  to  characterise  the  East  as  a  whole; 
but  to  deal  separately  with  India,  China,  and 
Japan,  and  their  reactions  to  the  West,  as  they 
have  shown  themselves  to  me.  I  shall  en- 
deavour to  characterise  each  of  these  civilisa- 
tions, first,  as  they  were  before  contact  with 
the  West;  and  afterwards  to  consider  the 
effect  upon  them  of  that  contact. 
8 


INDIA 

To  summarise,  I  will  say,  first,  that  I  con- 
ceive the  dominant  note  of  India  to  be  religion; 
of  China,  humanity;  of  Japan,  chivalry. 
These  terms,  of  course,  to  begin  with,  are  mere 
labels.  I  shall  proceed  to  develop  my  meaning 
in  each  case. 

In  discussing  the  religion  of  a  people  one  is 
met  with  the  perhaps  insuperable  difficulty 
of  estimating  what,  to  the  mass  of  the  people, 
their  religious  observances  really  mean.  I 
think  it  is  clear  that  to  the  peasants  of  most 
countries — of  Italy,  say,  or  of  China  or  of 
Japan — religion  is  no  more  than  a  ritual 
which  they  would  be  uncomfortable  if  they  did 
not  perform ;  a  kind  of  lightning  conductor  for 
the  emotions  and  desires  that  are  concerned 
with  the  ordinary  business  of  life,  with  getting 
one's  living,  with  birth,  marriage,  child-bear- 
ing, and  death.  And,  of  course,  in  India  x  re- 
ligion is,  at  least,  this.  The  people  pray  for 
children,  pray  for  healing,  pray  for  rain,  pray 
for  everything  they  want.  But  is  not  religion 
to  Indians  something  more  than  this  ?  Obser- 
vers who  try  to  know  the  people  believe  that  it 
is,  and  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  they  are 

1  In  speaking  of  Indian  religion  I  have  in  view 
throughout  Hinduism,  not  Mahometanism. 
9 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

right ;  that  even  the  Indian  peasant  does  really 
believe  that  the  true  life  is  a  spiritual  life ;  that 
he  respects  the  saint  more  than  any  other  man  ; 
and  that  he  regards  the  material  world  as 
"  unreal,"  and  all  its  cares  as  illusion.  He 
cannot,  of  course,  and  does  not,  put  this  con- 
viction into  practice,  or  Indian  society  would 
come  to  an  end.  But  he  admires  and  even 
worships  those  who  do  put  it  into  practice. 
I  have  seen  on  the  faces  of  poor  Indians,  at 
religious  functions,  an  expression  I  have  seen 
nowhere  else,  unless,  perhaps,  in  Russian 
churches.  At  Muttra,  for  instance,  I  re- 
member the  ecstatic  look  on  the  faces  of  the 
crowd  as  the  priests  waved  their  torches  before 
the  image  of  the  god ;  and  similarly,  at  Kandy, 
the  look  of  those  who  came  to  worship  the 
relics — books  even! — at  the  Temple  of  the 
Tooth.  This  is  "  idolatry,"  of  course.  But 
what  does  idolatry  imply?  Roman  Catholics 
choose  to  think  that  while  Christians  worship 
the  god  symbolised  by  the  image,  Chinese  or 
Indians  worship  the  image  itself.  But  this  is 
sheer  prejudice.  And,  unless  I  am  very  much 
mistaken,  an  idol  is  far  more  of  a  symbol  and 
less  of  an  object  of  worship  to  an  Indian 

peasant  than  it  is  to  most  Roman  Catholics. 
10 


INDIA 

Kali  is  a  hideous  idol,  fed  by  the  blood  of 
goats.  But  I  am  inclined  to  believe  what  I 
have  been  told,  that  to  an  Indian  she  sym- 
bolises the  divine  mother;  and  that  it  is  her, 
not  the  idol,  that  they  are  worshipping. 

I  have  said  thus  much  on  a  very  difficult 
subject,  because  I  am  taking  the  view  that 
religion  is  the  dominant  factor  in  Indian 
society;  and  I  wished  to  deal  beforehand 
with  the  objection  likely  to  be  taken  that  very 
few  Indians  are  religious  in  any  true  or  im- 
portant sense  of  the  term.  Very  few,  I  agree, 
do  or  could  carry  through  their  religion  to  its 
logical  consequences;  but  most  have  it;  and 
most  admire  those  who  carry  it  out.  This 
religion,  however,  is  radically  different  from 
the  religion  of  the  Western  nations.  In  the 
first  place,  India  has  never  put  Man  in  the 
centre  of  the  universe.  In  India,  and  wherever 
Indian  influence  has  penetrated,  it  is,  on  the 
one  hand,  the  tremendous  forces  of  nature, 
and  what  lies  behind  them,  that  is  the  object 
of  worship  and  of  speculation;  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  Mind  and  Spirit ;  not  the  mind  or 
spirit  of  the  individual  person,  but  the  uni- 
versal Mind,  or  Spirit,  which  is  in  him,  but  to 
which  he  can  only  have  access  by  philosophic 
ii 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

meditation  and  ascetic  discipline.  Indian 
religion  is  thus  very  "  inhuman "  compared 
to  Christianity;  and  very  much  more  in 
harmony  with  the  spirit  of  western  science 
than  with  that  of  western  religion.  And  this 
fact  is  exemplified  not  only  by  the  religious  and 
philosophic  literature  of  India,  but  by  its  art. 
Hindu  sculpture  and  architecture  —  I  have 
examined  it  from  north  to  south,  and  from 
east  to  west — is  disquieting  and  terrible  to  a 
western  mind.  It  expresses  the  inexhaustible 
fertility,  the  ruthlessness,  the  irrationality  of 
nature;  never  her  beauty,  her  harmony,  her 
adaptability  to  human  needs.  Man,  in  the 
Indian  vision,  is  a  plaything  and  slave  of 
natural  forces;  only  by  ceasing  to  be  man 
does  he  gain  freedom  and  deliverance. 

And  this  brings  me  to  the  second  point  in 
which  Indian  religion  contrasts  with  that  of 
the  West.  To  an  Indian  saint  or  philosopher 
the  whole  world  of  matter  is  unreal,  and  the 
whole  of  human  history  illusory.  There  is  no 
meaning  in  time  or  the  processes  of  time ;  still 
less  is  there  any  goodness  in  it.  In  some  way, 
unexplained  and  inexplicable,  the  terrible 
illusion  we  call  life  dominates  mankind.  To 
be  delivered  from  the  illusion — from  life,  that 

12 


INDIA 

is,  and  activity  in  time — is  the  object  of  all 
effort  and  all  religion.  In  this  sense  the  Indian 
religion  is  pessimistic.  There  is,  of  course,  an 
important  distinction  between  Buddhism  and 
the  Brahminism  it  supplanted  for  a  time  and 
then  succumbed  to.  Gautama  Buddha,  it 
would  seem,  was  a  thorough-going  sceptic  and 
rationalist;  he  believed  neither  in  God  nor  in 
the  soul;  and  the  object  of  his  teaching  was 
to  deliver  men  from  life  to  annihilation  by 
instructing  them  how  to  eliminate  desire. 
Brahminism,  on  the  other  hand,  wishes  to 
deliver  them  from  false  life  to  true  life.  The 
true  life  is  life  eternal;  and  we  may  have 
access  to  it  by  discipline  and  meditation.  But 
from  my  immediate  point  of  view  this  dis- 
tinction is  not  important.  What  is  important 
is  that,  in  either  form,  precisely  that  is  denied 
which  the  West  most  emphatically  affirms :  the 
reality  and  importance  of  the  material  world, 
and  of  the  historic  process  in  time.  The  West 
is  often  called  materialistic  as  compared  with 
the  East.  But  this  antithesis,  so  far  as  it  is 
true,  does  not  depend  on  any  metaphysical 
view  held  or  denied  as  to  the  nature  of  matter. 
The  West  does  not  profess  to  know  what  matter 
is,  and  its  hypotheses  about  it  are  always 
13 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

changing.  The  real  point  of  distinction  is, 
that  the  West  believes  that  all  effort  ought  to 
centre  upon  the  process  of  living  in  time ;  that 
that  process  has  reality  and  significance;  and 
that  the  business  of  religion  is  not  to  deliver 
us  from  effort  by  convincing  us  of  its  futility, 
but  to  sanctify  and  justify  it.  No  modern 
western  man  would  regard  as  an  admirable 
type  at  all — still  less  as  the  highest  type — a 
man  who  withdraws  from  the  world  to  meditate 
and  come  into  direct  contact  with  the  Uni- 
versal. But  an  Indian  who  is  uncontaminated 
by  western  culture  still  regards  that  as  the  true 
ideal  of  conduct;  and  views  all  activities  in 
the  world  as  lower  and  inferior,  though,  for 
undeveloped  men,  they  are  necessary  and 
pardonable. 

With  this  view  of  religion  the  history  and 
institutions  of  Hinduism  harmonise.  The 
Vedas,  it  is  true,  reflect  an  attitude  to  life 
similar  to  that  of  the  Western  Aryans;  but 
this  essentially  active,  positive,  optimistic 
view  gradually  clouds  over.  The  cause, 
perhaps,  is  the  influence  of  climate,  of  a 
Nature  too  strong  for  man.  No  impression 
remains  more  vivid  with  me  of  my  visit  to 
India  than  that  of  the  dominance  of  nature, 
14 


INDIA 

and  the  impotence  and  insignificance  of  man. 
But  whatever  the  cause,  there  is  no  doubt 
about  the  fact.  Indian  society  became  im- 
pregnated with  the  sense  of  the  nothingness 
of  life  in  time.  To  escape,  not  to  dominate, 
became  the  note  of  their  religion.  And  life 
being  insignificant,  history,  of  course,  was  so 
too.  It  is  not  an  accident,  it  is  a  consequence 
of  their  attitude  to  life,  that  there  are  no  Hindu 
historians.  Contrast  the  Mahometans,  con- 
trast the  Chinese,  contrast  the  western  nations. 
How  can  you  write  the  history  of  a  nightmare? 
You  don't  do  that.  You  try  to  wake  up. 

It  is  true  that  Christianity,  too,  has,  as  one 
of  its  elements,  this  idea  of  the  illusoriness 
of  the  world.  But  Christianity  contains  other 
elements,  incompatible  with  this;  as,  indeed, 
it  was  its  practical  wisdom  and  its  philosophic 
insufficiency  that  it  combined  the  most  irre- 
concilable notions.  And  further,  the  western 
nations  have  never  really  been  Christian. 
Their  true  religion  has  only  become  apparent 
as  Christianity  has  declined.  That  religion — 
not  yet  expressed  in  forms,  but  implicit  in  all 
their  conduct — is  that  the  time-process  is  also 
the  real  process;  that  everything  material 
matters  very  much  indeed;  and  that  spiritu- 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

alism  must  either  recognise  the  claims  of 
matter  or  retire  from  the  conflict.  This  life 
and  its  purposes  are  significant,  and  important, 
and  what  a  man  ought  to  attend  to;  that  is 
the  real  postulate  of  the  modern  West;  and 
that  is  what  all  Indian  religion  and  philosophy 
has  denied.  But  on  this  point  China  and 
Japan  are  at  one  with  the  West.  And  that  is 
why  I  said  that  the  real  antithesis  is  not 
between  East  and  West,  but  between  India 
and  the  rest  of  the  world. 

This,  then,  of  general  attitude  towards 
life,  carrying  with  it  a  whole  psychology, 
and  reflecting  itself  in  religion  and  in  art,  is  the 
first  point  that  distinguishes  the  civilisation 
of  India,  as  I  think,  from  every  other.  The 
second  point  is  one  of  social  institutions.  India 
is  the  home  of  caste.  Caste  may  be  defined  as 
the  hereditary  determination  of  a  man's  place 
in  society.  No  hard  and  fast  line  can  be  drawn 
between  it  and  class;  for  wherever  there  are 
classes  the  position  of  the  father  plays  some 
part,  and  usually  the  chief  part,  in  determin- 
ing the  position  of  the  son.  Moreover,  almost 
all  societies — China  is  the  great  exception — 
have  passed  through  an  age  of  caste;  Egypt, 
of  course,  par  excellence,  Japan,  Europe  in  the 
16 


INDIA 

Middle  Ages.  But  in  India  caste  has  developed 
into  a  rigour  and  a  multiplicity  unknown  in 
any  other  country.  Castes  and  sub-castes  are 
innumerable,  and  new  ones  are  always  spring- 
ing up.  India  has  never  been  democratic, 
either  in  theory  or  in  practice;  never  had  the 
ideal  of  equal  opportunity;  always  had  that 
of  hierarchy ;  and  at  the  head  of  that  hierarchy 
always  the  priest.  Nothing,  of  course,  could 
be  more  radically  antagonistic  to  the  whole 
current  of  theory  and  practice  in  the  modern 
West.  But  this  antagonism  does  not  exist  at 
all  in  the  case  of  China,  and  only  in  a  very 
modified  degree  in  the  case  of  Japan.  Here, 
too,  the  position  of  India  is  unique.  It  is  the 
antithetic  pole  to  the  West. 

What  I  have  said  so  far  applies  to  India 
before  contact  with  the  West,  and  very 
generally  and  widely  applies  still.  But  a 
process  of  modification  has  been  proceeding 
since  the  British  conquest.  And  I  will 
go  on  now  to  say  what  I  have  to  say  on 
this  subject. 

Here,  again,  India  differs  radically  from 
China  and  Japan.  China,  though  she  has 
been  bullied  and  robbed,  has  not  been  con- 
quered and  administered  by  the  western 
17  B 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

powers.  That  may  come.  But,  at  any 
rate,  up  to  now  China  has  been  an  inde- 
pendent country.  And  Japan  has  not  only 
saved  her  independence,  she  has  energetically 
reacted  against  the  West,  and  shown  that  she 
can  give  as  well  as  take  blows.  But  India, 
never  a  nation,  never  a  unity,  split  up  by 
racial,  religious,  caste  distinctions,  fell,  and 
was  bound  to  fall,  an  easy  prey  to  a  western 
power.  That  that  power  should  be  England 
is  one  of  the  ironies  of  history;  for  of  all  the 
western  nations  the  English  are  the  least 
capable  of  appreciating  the  qualities  of  Indian 
civilisation,  and  the  most  capable  of  appre- 
ciating its  defects.  To  an  Englishman,  prac- 
tical efficiency,  honesty,  and  truth  are  the  chief 
and  indispensable  goods.  To  an  Indian,  as,  in 
a  less  degree,  to  other  Orientals,  all  these  things 
are  indifferent.  On  the  other  hand,  an  Eng- 
lishman has  no  conception  even  of  the  mean- 
ing of  a  philosophic  or  religious  problem.  The 
notion  that  the  material  world  could  be  a  mere 
illusion  is  one  that  could  never  appeal  to  him 
as  even  intelligible  (Berkeley,  it  must  be  re- 
membered, was  an  Irishman,  and  Hume  a 
Scotchman).  His  religion,  when  he  has  one, 

is  a  transfigured  morality,  not  a  mysticism. 
18 


INDIA 

He  is  practical,  through  and  through,  in 
spiritual  as  well  as  in  material  things.  Be- 
tween him  and  the  Indian  the  gulf  is  im- 
passable. 

Add  to  this  that  whereas  all  the  other  con- 
querors of  India  had  migrated  to  the  country, 
settled  down  and  lived  there,  and  become 
assimilated  to  Indian  conditions,  the  English 
are,  of  all  races,  the  least  assimilable.  They 
carried  to  India  all  their  own  habits  and  ways 
of  life;  squatted,  as  it  were,  in  armed  camps; 
spent  as  in  exile  twenty  or  twenty-five  years; 
and  returned  home,  sending  out  new  men  to 
take  their  place,  equally  imbued  with  Eng- 
lish ideals  and  habits,  equally  unassimilable. 
Facility  of  communication  has  only  emphasised 
and  strengthened  this  attitude.  The  English- 
man sends  his  children  home  to  be  educated; 
commonly  his  wife  will  spend  at  least  half  her 
time  at  home;  he  himself  returns  every  few 
years;  his  centre  is  not  India,  but  England. 
It  would,  I  think,  be  unreasonable  and  absurd 
to  blame  the  Englishman  for  this;  he  is, 
indeed,  often  praised  for  it  by  foreigners.  As 
a  very  intelligent  and  enlightened  official  re- 
marked to  me,  an  Englishman  cannot  be  ex- 
pected to  lose  his  own  soul — and  his  soul  is 
19 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

the  traditions  and  habits  of  his  race — for  the 
sake  of  other  people's  politics.  Still,  there  is 
the  fact,  and  it  is  one  of  cardinal  importance 
in  the  relations  between  the  two  races.  It 
maintains  the  distinction  between  the  govern- 
ing and  the  governed  people;  and  it  does  so 
by  creating  an  almost  impassable  social  gulf. 
For  this  gulf,  however,  it  must  in  fairness  be 
added,  the  Indians  are  not  less  responsible  than 
the  English.  Their  family  and  caste  system 
hampers  all  social  intercourse.  If  a  man  can- 
not eat  with  you,  or  introduce  his  wife  to  you, 
it  is  difficult  for  you  to  associate  with  him 
at  all.  Add  to  this  that,  whereas  to  most 
Englishmen  sport  and  games  are  the  main  sub- 
jects, outside  their  work,  of  interest  and  con- 
versation, to  most  Indians  they  are  completely 
indifferent.  Indians  want  to  talk  philosophy 
and  religion;  Englishmen  want  to  talk  polo 
and  golf.  There  is  no  need,  then,  to  suppose 
any  kind  of  original  sin  or  deliberate  unkind- 
ness  or  wickedness  on  either  side  to  account 
for  the  social  chasm.  Cases,  it  is  true,  still 
occur  where  individual  Englishmen — gener- 
ally, I  think,  in  the  army — are  insolent  to 
individual  Indians,  but  these  are  becoming 
rarer,  and  are  steadily  discountenanced  by 

20 


INDIA 

Government.  They  are  not  the  root  of  the 
difficulty.  The  difficulty  lies  deeper;  and  I 
see  no  way  of  removing  it,  short  of  removing 
the  English  from  India. 

If  the  English  had  been  able  and  content  to 
govern  Indians  by  the  sword,  without  affecting 
their  ideas  and  institutions,  this  social  gulf 
need  not  perhaps  have  created  a  political  diffi- 
culty. Indian  civilisation  would  have  pro- 
ceeded unchanged,  and  Indians  would  have 
been  indifferent  as  to  who  it  was  that  raised 
the  taxes,  so  long  as  they  were  not  intolerably 
oppressive.  But,  in  fact,  it  would  have  been 
impossible  to  govern  India  without  modify- 
ing it;  and  in  any  case  that  was  a  policy 
deliberately  rejected  by  the  English.  They 
determined  to  educate  the  Indians  in  English 
ideas;  and  they  started  this  process  at  a 
moment  peculiarly  favourable  to  its  success. 
For  the  old  Indian  education  was  in  decadence, 
and  Indians  knew  and  cared  little  about  their 
own  philosophy.  Under  the  new  influences  a 
generation  grew  up  sceptical  and  rationalistic, 
nourished  on  Mill  and  Spencer,  cut  off  from 
its  own  roots  and  artificially  grafted  on  to  the 
western  tree.  This,  however,  is  only  what 
happens  and  is  bound  to  happen  wherever 
21 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

East  meets  West.  The  paradox  in  India  is 
that  the  English  have  deliberately  instructed 
their  Indian  subjects  in  their  own  political 
ideas;  in  a  system  of  thought,  therefore, 
which  radically  condemns  the  kind  of  govern- 
ment they  maintain  in  India.  Self-govern- 
ment, no  taxation  without  representation, 
these  and  the  like  are  the  watchwords  of 
English  political  philosophy;  while  English 
history  supplies  striking  examples  of  the 
refusal  of  a  people  to  submit  to  an  arbitrary 
and  autocratic  government.  In  this  philo- 
sophy and  this  history  Indians  are  carefully 
educated.  And  further,  they  have  before 
them  the  famous  proclamation  of  1858,  that 
in  the  government  of  India  no  distinction 
shall  be  made  on  the  ground  of  colour,  race, 
or  religion.  It  was  genuinely  believed  by  the 
statesmen  who  inaugurated  this  regime  that 
under  the  new  system  of  education  the  Indians 
would  quickly  become  willing  and  able  to 
administer  their  own  country  on  English 
lines,  under  the  aegis  of  English  protection. 
And,  in  fact,  as  is  well  known,  in  the  civil 
administration  of  India  less  than  a  thousand 
Englishmen  take  part;  all  subordinate  posts 
are  held  by  Indians;  while  in  the  judiciary  the 

22 


INDIA 

highest  positions  are  open  to  natives  of  the 
country.  Both  in  the  central  and  provincial 
governments  there  are  legislative  and  execu- 
tive councils  on  a  representative  basis;  and 
Lord  Morley's  recent  reform  has  largely  in- 
creased the  power  and  prestige  of  these  bodies. 
In  the  history  of  India,  indeed,  the  critical 
point  seems  to  have  been  reached  at  which 
any  further  extension  of  the  principle  of  self- 
government  would  really  transfer  the  control 
of  the  country  from  the  English  to  the  natives. 
And  this,  of  course,  would  mean  a  real  revolu- 
tion, analogous  to  the  change  of  water  into 
steam  or  into  ice  when  a  certain  point  is 
reached  in  the  heating  or  cooling  process. 
Whether  that  next  step  shall  be  taken  or  not 
is  the  problem  before  which  the  government 
of  India  is  hesitating. 

There  are  two  points  here  involved;  first, 
the  efficiency  of  a  government  controlled 
wholly  or  in  part  by  Indians;  secondly,  its 
loyalty  to  the  English  political  system. 

When  I  was  in  India  the  Commission  on 
the  Indian  Civil  Service  was  sitting,  and  I  had 
the  opportunity  of  attending  their  meetings 
in  Madras,  and  of  talking  with  many  of  the 
members.  I  also  discussed  the  questions 
23 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

involved  with  various  civilians.  One  thing 
came  out  clearly.  Most  of  the  English  wit- 
nesses believed  that  Indians  could  not  be 
admitted  to  the  highest  and  most  responsible 
posts  without  serious  detriment  to  the  effi- 
ciency of  the  service.  They  believed  that 
as  a  general  rule,  Indians  have  not  the  nerve 
and  judgment  necessary  in  a  critical  situation. 
They  believed,  also,  that  Indians  cannot  be 
trusted  to  be  impartial.  For  the  majority  of 
those  who  would  hold  office  would  be,  as  they 
now  are,  Brahmins ;  and  Brahmins  will  favour 
Brahmins  at  the  expense  of  other  castes. 
They  believed,  therefore,  that  the  transfer  of 
the  highest  administrative  posts  to  Indians 
would  be  very  unpopular  with  the  great  mass 
of  the  people,  for  whom  they  genuinely  believe 
themselves  to  be  trustees.  I  am  not  in  a 
position  to  estimate  the  truth  of  this  view; 
but  I  believe  it  to  be  widely  held  among  the 
English  officials,  and  among  the  most  intelli- 
gent and  enlightened  of  them.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  bulk  of  the  Indian  witnesses  main- 
tained that  Indians  trained  in  English  ideas 
and  methods  would  be  as  competent  and  fair 
as  Englishmen.  I  must  add,  however,  that  I 
have  met  Indian  officials  who  take  the  other 
24 


INDIA 

view,  and  who  hold  that  the  time  is  not  ripe 
for  filling  the  highest  posts  with  Indians. 

The  question  of  loyalty  is  even  more  dim- 
cult  than  that  of  efficiency,  as,  from  an  English 
point  of  view,  it  is  more  serious.  There  can, 
I  think,  be  no  doubt  that  very  strong  currents 
of  disaffection  are  running  among  the  edu- 
cated class  in  India.  This,  it  will  be  remem- 
bered, found  violent  expression  a  few  years 
ago,  at  the  time  of  the  partition  of  Bengal.  It 
has  been  driven  underground  since;  but  I 
believe  that  it  is  still  strong,  and  that  the 
causes  which  produce  it  are  deep-seated  and 
permanent.  The  first  and  chief  of  these  is 
the  growth  of  an  Indian  self-consciousness,  a 
feeling  of  nationality,  which  itself  is  due  to 
the  British  occupation.  In  English,  Indians 
have  for  the  first  time  a  common  language 
spoken  by  all  educated  people.  Also,  very 
largely  under  the  stimulus  of  English  and 
European  scholars,  they  have  recovered  the 
heritage  of  their  own  philosophic  and  re- 
ligious traditions;  and  they  are  reacting 
violently  against  the  modes  of  thought  which 
dominated  an  early  generation.  This  move- 
ment— "  back  to  the  Vedas  "  one  might  call 
it — is  not  primarily  political.  But  it  almost 
35 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

inevitably  takes  a  political  cast.  For  it  im- 
plies a  reaction  against  all  the  ideas  and  ideals 
of  the  western  world,  the  representatives  of 
which  in  India  are  the  English.  The  Arya 
Somaj,  for  instance,  is  primarily  a  society  for 
educating  Indians  in  their  own  religion,  and 
for  reforming  by  Indians,  on  Indian  lines,  what 
seems  to  be  defective  in  their  civilisation.  But 
the  association  is  generally  regarded  by  the 
English  as  seditious;  and  I  should  think  it 
quite  probable  that  it  really  is  so,  indirectly  if 
not  directly;  just  as  the  Celtic  movement  in 
Ireland,  though  not  political  in  its  aim,  carries 
with  it  political  antagonism  to  the  English,  as 
a  necessary  adjunct  to  its  aesthetic  and  re- 
ligious antagonism.  In  short,  in  so  far  as 
Indians  develop  a  self-consciousness  which  is 
fundamentally  Indian  in  character,  they  must 
necessarily  object  more  and  more  to  control 
by  a  western  race. 

This  antagonism  of  mental  attitude  is  in- 
tensified and  exasperated  by  the  social  gulf 
to  which  I  have  referred.  Large  numbers  of 
Indians  are  educated  in  English  universities. 
They  find  that  in  England  an  impalpable 
barrier  separates  them  from  their  fellow- 
students;  a  barrier  which  is  not  deliberately 
26 


INDIA 

created  on  either  side,  but  results  from  differ- 
ent instincts,  habits,  and  desires.  Briefly, 
Indians  seldom  play  games!  On  the  other 
hand,  socially  they  are  treated  in  England  as 
equals,  and  there  is  little  consciousness  on 
either  side  of  a  colour  bar  as  such.  They  are 
isolated,  but  not  irritated.  When,  however, 
they  return  to  India,  well  instructed  in  demo- 
cratic conceptions,  social  and  political,  they 
find  a  great  difference;  a  difference  which, 
one  is  told,  manifests  itself  on  the  boat  as  soon 
as  Suez  is  passed.  The  English  in  England 
do  not  feel  that  they  are  a  governing  race, 
and  Indians  a  governed.  They  may  be  in- 
different to  Indians,  they  may  be  bored  by 
them,  but  they  have  no  sense  of  a  superiority 
to  be  maintained.  It  is  otherwise  in  India. 
There  the  English  are  a  small  camp  of  con- 
querors planted  down  among  millions  of  con- 
quered. Nothing  can  alter  this  fundamental 
fact.  It  is  expressed  everywhere  and  in 
everything.  Unfortunately,  it  is  sometimes 
expressed  in  frank  and  brutal  insolence  on  the 
part  of  individual  Englishmen.  And  Indians, 
being  immensely  sensitive,  suspect  insolence 
even  where  none  is  intended.  Further,  they 
have  no  adequate  outlet  for  their  ambition. 
27 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

In  the  Civil  Service  they  cannot  rise  to  the 
highest  posts;  the  Bar  is  overcrowded;  they 
have  little  aptitude  and  no  training  for  busi- 
ness; and  they  visit  on  the  English  their  dis- 
content at  conditions  for  which  the  English 
are  hardly  directly  responsible.  Add  that 
they  are  torn  between  two  civilisations,  out  of 
touch  with  their  own  and  excluded  from  ours. 
Indian  society  bores  them,  English  society  is 
not  open  to  them ;  and  in  India  it  would  only 
bore  them  if  it  were;  for  the  English  in  India 
are  of  all  the  English  the  least  intellectual  and 
the  least  interested  in  ideas.  Indians  edu- 
cated in  England  form,  therefore,  a  natural 
centre  for  all  seditious  movements.  The  good 
and  the  bad  elements  of  their  character  and 
their  position  alike  make  for  this;  their 
Indian  patriotism,  their  personal  vanity,  their 
thwarted  ambition,  their  idealism.  They  are, 
I  think,  of  all  gifted  men — and  they  are  often 
very  gifted — the  most  unhappy.  And  their 
unhappiness  makes  them  bitter  and  unjust. 

In  speaking  thus  far  of  the  contact  between 
East  and  West  in  India  I  have  confined  myself 
to  what  is  peculiar  to  India,  owing  to  the  fact 
that  it  has  been  conquered,  and  is  adminis- 
tered, by  a  western  race.  But  apart  from 
28 


INDIA 

this  fact,  and  the  peculiar  problems  it  creates, 
there  is  the  larger  and,  from  the  point  of  view 
of  general  history,  more  important  question  of 
the  general  reaction  between  the  civilisation 
of  the  East  and  that  of  the  West.  On  this 
point,  too,  I  must  say  a  few  words.  Indian 
culture,  I  have  suggested,  is  more  remote  from 
western  than  that  of  any  other  eastern  country. 
And  in  India,  as  in  China,  the  great  masses  of 
the  people  are,  of  course,  untouched  in  their 
traditional  ideas  and  way  of  life  by  any  con- 
tact with  the  West.  The  effects,  so  far,  of  the 
British  conquest  on  the  peasants  of  India  are 
economic  rather  than  intellectual  or  spiritual; 
and  on  the  economic  question  I  do  not  propose 
to  touch.  On  the  other  hand,  the  educated 
classes  in  India  have  been  subjected  for  several 
generations  to  the  full  stream  of  western  ideas; 
and  its  effects  have  been  radical  and  profound. 
Born  into  a  system  of  caste,  they  have  been 
educated  in  the  ideas  of  equal  opportunity 
and  no  privilege.  Born  into  an  atmosphere 
of  all-pervading  religion,  they  have  been  edu- 
cated in  rationalism  and  free  thought.  Born 
into  an  atmosphere  of  faith,  they  have  been 
educated  in  an  atmosphere  of  science.  The 
earlier  generations  accepted  the  new  gospel 
29 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

whole-heartedly,  repudiated  with  contempt 
the  ideas,  the  customs,  and  (as  was  complained) 
the  morals  of  their  race;  cut  themselves  off, 
in  a  word,  from  the  whole  Indian  tradition. 
Then  came  a  reaction  against  the  West;  and 
western-educated  Indians  now,  I  think,  are 
generally  sceptical  both  of  the  civilisation  of 
the  East  and  of  that  of  the  West.  They  may, 
indeed,  sometimes  defend  their  own  funda- 
mental institutions,  such  as  caste  and  the 
position  of  women;  they  may  praise  the  re- 
ligious attitude  of  India;  but  I  doubt  whether 
this  is  often  more  than  a  kind  of  irritation 
against  the  shams  of  western  civilisation,  of 
which  they  are  very  fully  conscious.  The  truth 
is  that  their  experience  of  the  West  has  opened 
the  eyes  of  educated  Indians  to  the  weaknesses 
of  their  own  system,  though  without  convert- 
ing them  to  the  system  of  the  West.  And  I 
cannot  but  believe  that  the  process  of  dis- 
integration must  and  will  proceed  to  the 
end. 

To  speak  first  of  what  is  most  important, 
the  general  attitude  towards  life,  the  problem 
in  India  is  essentially  the  same  as  it  is  every- 
where in  the  modern  world.  How,  if  at 
all,  can  religion  be  reconciled  with  positive 
3° 


INDIA 

knowledge?  The  problem,  indeed,  is  acuter 
in  India  than  anywhere  else,  for  India  is  more 
religious  than  any  other  country.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  might  be  easier  of  solution  than 
in  western  countries,  for  Indian  religion  has 
never  been  a  system  of  dogmas,  and  is  not  en- 
tangled in  questionable  history.  In  India,  it 
seems  to  me,  you  get  the  problem  in  its  purest 
form,  namely,  not  "  did  such-and-such  events 
happen?  "  which  is  a  purely  historical  ques- 
tion; nor  "  does  the  individual  soul  survive 
death?  "  which  is  perhaps  unascertainable; 
but  "  is  there  a  method  of  discovering  truth 
about  the  world  as  a  whole,  and  man's  rela- 
tion to  it,  other  than  the  method  of  observation 
and  induction?  "  Indian  philosophy  and  re- 
ligion have  always  affirmed  that  there  is ;  that 
by  meditation  and  discipline  an  internal  per- 
ception is  opened  which  is  a  perception  of 
truth.  Philosophically  and  a  priori  this  posi- 
tion can  neither  be  affirmed  nor  denied.  It 
is  entirely  a  matter  of  experience.  Indians 
affirm  that  the  experience  occurs,  and  I  have 
no  doubt  they  affirm  truly.  They  affirm  also 
that  it  is  not  a  hallucination  or  a  merely  sub- 
jective state,  which  may  be  questioned  but 
cannot  be  refuted.  To  this  fundamental 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

point  everything  else  is  subordinate.  The 
persistence  of  Indian  religion  will  not  depend 
on  how  much,  or  whether  anything,  in  the 
Vedas  is  taken  as  gospel;  it  will  depend  on  the 
continuous  appearance  and  acceptance  of  the 
"  saint  "  in  the  Indian  sense  of  that  term — 
the  man,  that  is,  who  perceives  what  he  affirms 
to  be  spiritual  truth.  Hitherto  the  line  of 
the  saints  has  not  been  cut  off.  One  of  the 
most  remarkable  of  them,  Sri  Ramakrishna, 
died  late  in  the  nineteenth  century;  and  any 
one  who  reads  his  conversations  1  will  realise 
how  little  he  depended  on  oral  or  written  tra- 
dition, and  how  much  on  direct  personal 
experience. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  cannot  doubt  that  a 
training  in  positive  science  and  its  methods 
must  make  men  more  incapable  either  of 
having  or  desiring  to  have  this  experience,  or 
of  accepting  it  as  evidential  in  others.  Re- 
ligion in  some  sense  may  be  compatible  with 
science;  but  only,  I  think,  if  religion  be  inter- 
preted as  a  passionate  contemplation  of  the 
world  as  made  known  by  science,  a  sense  of 
its  complexity,  its  grandeur,  and  its  immense, 

1  Gospel  of  Sri  Ramakrishna,  Madras,  published 
by  the  Ramakrishna  Mission,  1912. 
32 


INDIA 

overwhelming  transcendence  of  man.  This 
attitude  may  have  analogies  to  that  of  Indian 
religion,  but  it  is  so  far  radically  distinct  that 
no  Indian  saint,  and  for  that  matter  no 
Western  saint,  ever  had  anything  but  con- 
tempt for  the  knowledge  gained  by  the  senses 
and  the  intellect.  Sainthood,  in  a  word,  is 
antagonistic  to  science,  as  science  is  antagon- 
istic to  sainthood.  And  the  development  in 
India  of  scientific  knowledge  and  method 
must  end  by  interrupting  and  destroying  the 
old  Indian  religion  in  so  far  as  that  rests  on  a 
claim  to  attain  truth  by  meditation  divorced 
from  observation. 

There  is  then,  I  believe,  in  India  as  in 
Europe,  a  real,  not  merely  seeming,  antagon- 
ism between  traditional  religion  and  modern 
ways  of  thinking.  The  educated  class  is 
aware  of  this,  and  is  making  efforts  analogous 
to  those  made  in  Europe  to  overcome  it. 
These  may  take  the  form  of  an  abstraction 
from  all  religions  of  their  more  rational 
elements  and  an  emphasis  of  these  as  the 
essence  of  religion.  This  is  the  position  of 
the  Brahmo  Somaj,  which,  in  fact,  is  a  pure 
theism,  emphasising,  however,  the  personal 
relation  of  the  soul  to  God.  To  this  sect,  or 
33  c 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

rather  these  sects,  for  the  society  is  split  into 
several,  all  religions  equally  contain  the  truth, 
though  all  are  tainted  with  error,  and  they 
make  no  special  claim  for  the  Hindu  tradition 
or  the  Hindu  sacred  books.  I  should  say, 
indeed,  from  what  I  saw,  that  their  spirit  is 
much  more  Christian  than  Hindu,  though 
they  do  not  give  to  Christ  a  higher  position 
than  to  other  great  prophets.  But  for  the 
very  reason,  perhaps,  of  its  detachment  from 
Hindu  tradition,  the  Brahmo  Somaj  seems  to 
be  losing,  not  gaining,  ground.  It  has  few 
adherents  outside  Bengal,  and  my  impression 
is  that  it  exercises  a  small  and  declining 
influence.  The  Arya  Somaj,  on  the  other 
hand,  bases  itself  on  the  Vedas,  and  is  intensely 
national.  It  claims  that  its  reformed  faith  is 
really  the  original  faith  of  the  Vedas,  a  claim 
which  I  should  suppose  would  not  for  a  mo- 
ment be  sustained  by  an  impartial  scholar. 
Its  adherents  have  been  very  numerous  and 
very  active,  especially  in  North-West  India, 
and  it  has  a  college  at  Hardwar  somewhat 
similar  to  Jesuit  institutions,  where  boys  are 
trained  exclusively  till  they  reach  manhood  in 
the  tenets  and  spirit  of  the  society,  with  a  view 
to  a  future  apostolate.  The  first  generation 
34 


INDIA 

of  these  students  is  now  being  sent  out,  and 
it  will  be  interesting  to  learn  what  effect  they 
will  have  on  the  world  and  the  world  on  them. 
I  got  the  impression,  however,  that  the  Arya 
Somaj,  too,  is  declining  with  the  disappear- 
ance of  the  first  generation  of  its  apostles. 
And,  indeed,  the  attempt  to  graft  a  belief 
which  shall  be  in  harmony  with  modern  ideas 
and  modern  social  movements  on  the  text  of 
the  Vedas  is,  I  believe,  as  much  foredoomed 
to  failure  as  similar  attempts  in  Europe  to 
reconcile  modern  positive  knowledge  with  the 
Old  and  the  New  Testament.  Whatever  may 
be  the  future  of  these  particular  sects,  they 
are  symptomatic  of  a  crisis  of  thought  which 
\s  world-wide,  and  arises  wherever  the  spirit 
of  modern  science  comes  into  contact  with  that 
of  traditional  religion.  Meantime,  however, 
the  great  mass  of  the  Indian  people,  being 
uneducated  even  in  reading  and  writing,  con- 
tinue unchanged  in  their  old  religious  routine 
and  religious  sentiments.  So  that  it  is  still 
true,  as  I  suggested  on  an  earlier  page,  that 
India  is  the  most  religious  country  in  the 
world,  unless  Russia  may  be  put  on  a  level 
with  her. 

Turning  now  from  religion  to  social  institu- 
35 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

tions,  there  can  be  little  doubt,  I  think,  that 
caste,  the  most  peculiar  feature  of  Indian  life,  is 
being  gradually  undermined,  partly  by  educa- 
tion, still  more,  perhaps,  by  railways  and  the 
gradual  spread  of  industrialism.  An  example 
may  show  what  I  mean  better  than  a  page 
of  generalisations.  I  was  travelling  in  South 
India  with  a  Brahmin  in  the  carriage.  What 
was  he  to  do?  He  had  to  eat,  and  there 
was  the  carriage  full  of  unclean  foreigners. 
What  he  did  do  was  to  go  into  a  corner  of  the 
carriage,  get  his  servant  to  stand  behind  him, 
so  as  to  make  a  kind  of  screen,  and  there  on 
the  floor  dispose  of  the  carefully  prepared  food 
he  had  brought  with  him  in  tin  boxes.  But 
this  kind  of  thing  must  surely  end  in  making 
the  whole  system  look  ridiculous.  The  best 
way  to  get  rid  of  caste  is  to  mix  people  up,  and 
there  is  no  such  mixing  as  that  of  railway 
travel.  Again,  the  introduction  of  factories 
must  react  upon  caste,  for  caste  is  not  taken 
account  of  by  employers.  At  a  mill  which  I 
visited  in  Agra  I  was  told  that  the  only  diffi- 
culty caused  by  caste  was  in  connection  with 
Brahmins  and  with  sweepers.  No  one  would 
work  with  a  sweeper,  and  a  Brahmin  may  make 
trouble  with  any  other  caste.  Otherwise,  for 
36 


INDIA 

industrial  purposes,  caste  disappears.  Caste, 
in  short,  will  vanish  as  the  social  conditions 
which  fostered  it  vanish;  and  these,  I  think, 
are  bound  to  vanish  whether  or  no  the  British 
rule  is  perpetuated,  by  the  economic  forces 
which  now  have  the  whole  world  in  their 

grip- 

The  position  of  women,  too,  another  pecu- 
liar feature  of  Indian  civilisation,  is  being 
profoundly  affected  by  Western  influences. 
First,  by  the  education  of  men,  for  educated 
men  want  educated  wives.  Secondly,  by 
the  education  of  girls,  which  is  an  important 
and  growing  feature  of  Indian  life.  Educated 
girls  in  India,  as  in  other  countries,  marry  later 
and  demand  more.  In  the  present  transition 
stage  very  real  domestic  tragedies  result  from 
the  conflict  between  mothers-in-law  brought 
up  on  the  old  system  and  daughters-in-law 
brought  up  on  the  new  one,  and  this,  perhaps, 
will  happen  for  many  generations.  Still,  for 
good  or  for  evil,  whoever  rules  India,  and  even 
if  she  rules  herself,  this  change,  I  believe,  will 
proceed.  There  is  something  in  it  world-wide 
and  secular,  and  it  is  one  of  the  profoundest 
social  changes  which  the  modern  world  is 
witnessing. 

37 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

There  is  one  other  point  on  which  I  will 
touch,  one  to  which  I  attach  great  importance, 
the  effect  of  contact  with  the  West  on  Indian 
arts  and  crafts.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
these  generally  have  declined,  if  not  perished ; 
and  the  immediate  cause  is  the  competition 
of  'Western  wares.  This  is  most  evident  in 
textiles,  where  factory-made  goods,  mainly 
imported,  but  partly  also  manufactured  in 
India,  are  killing  the  old  domestic  industries. 
But  the  decline  seems  to  be  general;  I,  at 
any  rate,  saw  nowhere  any  modern  products, 
whether  in  brasswork,  wood-carving,  embroi- 
dery, or  enamel,  which  seemed  to  me  to  have 
any  merit.  To  attribute  this  decline,  how- 
ever, merely  to  the  competition  of  Western 
wares  is  not  to  go  to  the  bottom  of  the  matter. 
For  the  question  remains,  Why  are  Western 
wares  preferred?  The  answer  that  they  are 
cheaper  is  sufficient,  no  doubt,  in  the  case 
of  goods  used  by  the  mass  of  the  people ;  cheap- 
ness, if  you  are  poor,  will  override,  in  the  East 
as  in  the  West,  all  other  considerations.  But 
there  is  something  more  than  this.  Some 
Indian  arts,  that  of  painting,  for  instance, 
that  of  architecture  on  a  grand  scale,  and  the 
arts  allied  to  it,  always  depended  in  India  on 
38 


INDIA 

the  patronage  of  princes.  These  princes  still 
exist  and  are  still  wealthy.  But  they  prefer 
to  patronise  bad  Western  art.  Why?  Obvi- 
ously because  they  have  no  real  taste,  and  the 
prestige  of  the  West  overrides  everything  else 
in  their  mind.  They  want  to  have  houses  and 
clothes  as  like  as  possible  to  those  of  Europeans. 
And  this  raises  the  general  question,  to  me  a 
very  interesting  one,  whether  taste  in  all 
Oriental  countries  has  not  been  for  genera- 
tions merely  a  habit ;  whether  people  went  on 
making  and  using  beautiful  things  merely 
because  their  fathers  and  grandfathers  had 
done  so;  and  as  soon  as  anything  new  is 
offered,  run  to  that,  not  only  for  the  sake  of 
cheapness,  but  for  the  sake  of  novelty  and 
snobbery.  My  observations  in  China  and  in 
Japan,  as  well  as  in  India,  suggested  to  me 
very  forcibly  that  this  is  the  truth — that  the 
arts  of  the  East  have  long  been  dead,  long 
before  contact  with  the  West,  so  far  as  active 
and  intelligent  taste  is  concerned,  and  that 
their  collapse  before  the  Western  invasion  is 
due  not  only  to  the  cheapness  of  Western 
goods,  but  to  an  actual  preference  for  them 
on  other  grounds,  or,  at  any  rate,  an  absence 
of  preference  for  the  more  beautiful  native 
39 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

products.  Indians  attribute  the  decline  of 
their  arts  and  crafts,  as  they  attribute  every- 
thing else,  to  the  malign  activities  of  the 
British  Government.  I  believe  they  do  not 
go  deep  enough.  They  should  attribute  it  to 
the  lack  of  effective  and  positive  taste  among 
their  own  leaders. 

To  sum  up,  I  find  in  India  a  peculiar 
civilisation,  antithetical  to  that  of  the  West. 
I  find  a  religious  consciousness  which  negates 
what  is  really  the  religious  postulate  of 
the  West,  that  life  in  time  is  the  real  and 
important  life;  and  a  social  institution, 
caste,  which  negates  the  implicit  assump- 
tion of  the  West,  that  the  desirable  thing  is 
equality  of  opportunity.  I  find  also  that  in 
India  the  contact  between  East  and  West 
assumes  a  form  peculiarly  acute  and  irritat- 
ing, owing  to  the  fact  that  India  has  been 
conquered  and  is  governed  by  a  Western 
Power.  But.  the  contact,  none  the  less,  is 
having  the  same  disintegrating  effect  it  pro- 
duces in  other  Eastern  countries.  And  I  do 
not  doubt  that  sooner  or  later,  whether  or 
no  British  rule  maintains  itself,  the  religious 
consciousness  of  India  will  be  transformed  by 
the  methods  and  results  of  positive  science, 
40 


INDIA 

and  its  institutions  by  the  economic  influences 
of  industrialism.  In  this  transformation  some- 
thing, of  course,  will  be  lost.  But  my  own 
opinion  is  that  India  has  more  to  gain  and  less 
to  lose  by  contact  with  the  West  than  any 
other  Eastern  country. 


PART  II.— CHINA 

WHEN  I  landed  in  China,  indeed,  when 
I  first  saw  the  Mongolian  type  at  Darjeeling, 
I  was  aware  of  a  feeling  as  though  an 
oppressive  cloud  had  lifted.  I  realised  then 
how  strange  and  how  tragic  India  had 
been  to  me,  how  utterly  alien  I  had  felt 
there.  The  brooding  over  the  whole  country 
of  a  spirit  not  merely  religious,  but  reli- 
gious in  a  sense  so  remote  from  anything 
religion  has  meant  in  the  West;  the  tremen- 
dous forces  antagonistic  to  man  marching 
over  the  land,  famine,  plague,  malaria,  drought, 
flood;  the  handful  of  English  camped  there, 
fighting  these  things  with  so  little  help  and 
so  little  hope;  the  gulf  between  rulers  and 
ruled;  the  spirit  of  revolt,  which  yet  seemed 
to  have  in  it  no  real  capacity  or  promise; 
all  these  things,  felt  sub-consciously  even 
more  than  consciously,  had  lain  like  a  night- 
mare upon  me,  clouding  all  the  interest  and 
all  the  pleasure  of  my  travels.  India  was 
sublime,  but  it  was  terrible.  China,  on  the 
42 


CHINA 

other  hand,  was  human.  At  the  first  sight  of 
these  ugly,  cheery,  vigorous  people  I  loved 
them.  Their  gaiety,  as  of  children,  their 
friendliness,  their  profound  humanity,  struck 
me  from  the  first  and  remained  with  me  to  the 
last.  I  can  imagine  no  greater  contrast  than 
that  between  their  character,  their  institutions, 
their  habits,  and  those  of  the  Indians.  The 
Chinese  are,  and  always  have  been,  profoundly 
secular,  as  the  Indians  are,  and  always  have 
been,  profoundly  religious.  It  is  true,  of 
course,  that  the  Chinese  have  had  religion,  as 
the  Europeans  have  had  it;  Buddhism  came 
to  them  from  India  as  Christianity  came  to  us 
from  Judaea,  and  Taoism  was  an  indigenous 
growth.  They  have  had  also  saints  and 
mystics,  as  Europe  has  had  them.  But 
Buddhism  and  Taoism  have  never  suited  the 
Chinese  character  any  more  than  Christianity 
has  suited  the  European.  Both  Buddhism 
and  Taoism  quickly  degenerated  to  mere 
superstition,  systems  of  magic,  imaginary 
means  to  obtain  material  ends.  It  was,  and 
is,  Confucianism  with  its  rationalism,  its 
scepticism,  its  stress  on  conduct,  that  expresses 
the  Chinese  spirit.  Over  India  gleam  the 
stars;  over  China  the  sun  shines.  Mankind 
43 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

is  the  centre  of  the  Chinese  universe,  as  the 
Absolute  is  the  centre  of  the  Indian.  Con- 
fucianism may  easily  be  translated  into  terms 
of  Western  positivism ;  it  could  never  be  trans- 
lated into  terms  of  Hinduism.  The  religion 
of  the  mass  of  the  Chinese  has  always  been 
mere  superstition,  whereas  in  India,  as  I  have 
said,  it  appears  to  be  true  that  the  superstition 
symbolises  a  real  spiritualism.  Ancestor  wor- 
ship is  the  centre  of  the  Chinese  system;  but 
that,  perhaps,  ought  not  to  be  called  worship  at 
all.  It  is  rather  commemoration,  and  as  such 
all  educated  Chinamen  regard  it.1  It  is  thus 
rather  a  social  than  a  religious  institution,  and 
serves  to  bind  the  family  together  rather  than 
to  foster  a  spiritual  life.  Its  bearing  on  life  is 
a  bearing  on  conduct,  and  it  is  but  an  intensi- 
fied form  of  the  feeling  which,  even  in  the  West, 
leads  a  man  of  distinguished  family  to  feel  that 
he  must  try  to  be  worthy  of  his  ancestors. 
What  distinguishes  the  Chinese  attitude  in 
this  matter  from  that  of  the  modern  West  is 
its  backward  rather  than  its  forward  look. 

1  Probably  only  the  educated.  To  the  mass,  I 
expect,  it  is  really  "  worship,"  in  the  sense  that  they 
expect  to  receive  benefits  from  the  spirits  to  whom 
they  offer. 

44 


CHINA 

We  look  to  our  descendants,  they  to  their  fore- 
bears. And  the  discrediting  of  Confucianism 
under  the  new  regime  is  due  to  its  supposed 
conservatism  rather  than  to  any  idea  that  it 
is  irrational  and  superstitious.  In  this  matter 
of  religion  the  Chinese  have  only  to  throw  over 
their  superstition  —  and  over  the  educated 
superstition  never  had  any  hold — and  they 
will  be  immediately  in  line  with  the  West.  In 
India,  as  we  saw,  things  are  far  otherwise. 
For  what  is  most  characteristic  and  profound 
in  the  Indian  spirit  is  antagonistic  to  and 
irreconcilable  with  rationalism  and  science. 

This,  which  I  call  the  secularism  of  the 
Chinese  attitude  to  life,  is  also  expressed 
in  their  art.  The  art  of  India,  in  my  judg- 
ment, has,  as  art,  little  or  no  value  (this, 
of  course,  is  a  highly  controversial  opinion), 
but  it  is  tremendously  significant  of  the 
spiritual  life  of  India.  It  is  all  symbolic, 
and  it  is  symbolic  of  those  grandiose  abstrac- 
tions in  which  the  Indian  mind  delights.  It 
expresses  an  over-world  of  spiritual  forces  of 
which  the  world  of  sense  is  a  shadowy  and 
illusory  manifestation.  It  does  not  interpret, 
it  negates  the  ordinary  life  and  the  ordinary 
consciousness.  That  is  why  it  is  so  disquiet- 
45 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

ing,  so  terrible,  so  monstrous  to  the  western 
spirit.  But  the  art  of  China  is  through  and 
through  human.  It  is  the  kind  of  art  that 
Romans,  too,  or  Englishmen  might  have  pro- 
duced, if  they  had  been  gifted  with  aesthetic 
genius ;  the  art  of  reasonable  concrete-minded 
men,  with  a  keen  sensitiveness  to  the  pathos 
and  gaiety  of  human  life,  and  the  beauty  and 
grandeur  of  nature.  It  is  characteristic  of 
Chinese  landscape-painting  that  it  should 
include  representation  of  the  human  observer. 
Their  artists  do  not,  it  is  true,  treat  nature  as 
a  mere  background  to  human  life,  as,  for 
example,  the  great  Venetian  artists  do;  but 
neither  do  they  treat  it  as  the  vehicle  of 
tremendous  supernatural  forces,  which  is  the 
spirit  of  Indian  art.  They  treat  it  as  a  beauti- 
ful object,  itself  real,  contemplated  by  a  sane 
and  sensitive  human  spirit.  So  with  their 
poetry.  It  is  of  all  poetry  I  know  the  most 
human  and  the  least  symbolic  or  romantic. 
It  contemplates  life  just  as  it  presents  itself, 
without  any  veil  of  ideas,  any  rhetoric  or  senti- 
ment; it  simply  clears  away  the  obstruction 
which  habit  has  built  up  between  us  and  the 
beauty  of  things,  and  leaves  that,  showing 
in  its  own  nature,  revealed  but  not  recreated. 
46 


CHINA 

Chinese  art  and  Chinese  poetry  have  the  spirit 
of  Wordsworth  and  of  the  most  modern  literary 
movement  in  France.  Their  art  is  a  realism, 
though  not  an  actualism;  a  vision  of  what 
this  life  is  as  seen  by  those  who  can  see  it, 
not  of  some  other  world  behind  or  above  or 
outside  it. 

The  fundamental  attitude  of  the  Chinese 
towards  life  is  thus,  in  my  judgment,  and 
always  has  been,  that  of  the  most  modern 
West,  nearer  to  us  now  than  to  our  mediaeval 
ancestors,  infinitely  nearer  to  us  than  India. 
And  the  same  is  true,  at  bottom,  of  social 
institutions.  China,  so  far  as  I  know,  is  the 
only  country  whose  civilisation  has  been  for 
centuries,  if  not  always,  democratic.  There 
has  never  been  caste  in  China,  there  has 
been,  I  think,  less  even  of  class  than  in  most 
countries.  That  equality  of  opportunity 
which  is  the  essence  of  democracy,  and 
which  has  been  denied  by  every  other  civili- 
sation, has  been  affirmed  by  China  in  theory, 
and  to  a  great  extent  in  practice,  from  the 
date  at  which  her  written  annals  begin. 
There  has  never  been  a  priestly  caste,  there 
has  never  been  a  governing  caste.  The  rich, 
of  course,  have  necessarily  had  advantages 
47 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

in  the  race  as  they  have  with  us,  but  the 
barrier  between  rich  and  poor  has  never  been 
as  great  as  it  is  in  the  modern  West,  and  it 
has  been  at  least  as  easy,  probably  easier,  to 
rise  from  bottom  to  top.  And  this  social  fact 
is  reflected  in  the  bearing  and  manners  of  the 
Chinese.  I  have  never  been  in  a  country 
where  the  common  people  are  at  once  so  self- 
respecting,  so  independent,  and  so  courteous. 
In  America,  for  example,  everybody  appears 
to  think  it  necessary  to  assure  you  that  they 
are  as  good  as  you  are  by  behaving  rudely  to 
you.  Nothing  of  the  kind  obtains  in  China, 
for  it  would  never  occur  to  them  that  they 
are  not  as  good.  There  is  none  of  this  self- 
conscious  assertion  of  their  rights;  still  less 
is  there  anything  of  that  obsequiousness 
which  one  meets  everywhere  in  India.  The 
Chinese  man  is  the  democratic  man.  He  is 
already,  so  far  as  his  attitude  to  himself  and 
to  his  fellows  is  concerned,  what  democrats 
hope  the  western  man  may  become.  His 
attitude  is  democratic,  just  as  it  is  positive 
and  secular.  And  this  underlying  and  funda- 
mental likeness  to  the  man  of  the  modern 
West  is,  in  my  judgment,  far  more  important 
and  significant  than  the  superficial  differences 
48 


CHINA 

which   are  usually  dwelt   upon  by  western 
travellers  and  residents. 

There  is  one  other  important  point  in 
which  China  contrasts  with  India.  China 
has  been  and  remains  politically  independent 
and  united.  This  statement  needs  some 
qualification,  but  it  is  essentially  true. 
The  Tartars  and  the  Manchus  have  con- 
quered China,  but  they  have  imposed  on  her 
nothing  but  a  dynasty.  They  have  adopted 
completely  the  manners,  customs,  ideas  of 
the  conquered.  Of  China  it  is  truer  even 
than  of  Greece  that  Capta  ferum  victorem 
cepit.  Not  so  India.  The  Mahometans,  in 
spite  of  conversions,  remain  Mahometans, 
different  in  religion,  different  in  sentiment, 
different  in  social  institutions,  from  the  Hindus. 
Nothing  yet  has  brought  the  two  communities 
into  harmony;  and  their  antagonism  is  still, 
and  perhaps  increasingly,  an  important  factor 
in  the  Indian  situation.  Again,  India,  until 
the  British  conquest,  has  never  been  welded 
into  a  political  unity.  The  largest  native 
empires,  like  that  of  Asoka,  the  largest  alien 
ones,  like  that  of  the  Moguls,  never  included 
the  whole  peninsula.  And,  in  addition,  there 
have  been  always  the  vertical  divisions  of  caste. 
49  D 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

But  China,  except  for  short  periods,  has  been 
for  two  thousand  years  at  least  under  one 
head;  and  though  the  provinces  have  had  a 
very  large  measure  of  autonomy,  they  have 
been  administered  by  officials  appointed  by 
the  Central  Government,  and  have  recognised 
its  existence  by  the  payment  of  taxes.  The 
various  dialects  of  China,  though  unintelligible 
one  to  another,  are  varieties  of  the  same 
language;  and  the  common  script  has  always 
given  to  the  educated  a  common  medium  of 
communication,  much  as  Latin  gave  it  to 
mediaeval  Europe.  China  has  been  a  political 
unity,  even  though  a  loose  one;  and  though 
this  unity  has  not  given  rise  to  a  strong 
national  feeling,  there  is  in  China  a  basis  for 
such  feeling  more  real  and  more  powerful  than 
anything  that  seems  to  exist  in  India.  For 
this  reason,  among  others,  China  would  not 
be  so  easy  to  conquer  as  India  was,  nor  so 
easy  to  govern  by  any  race  that  did  not 
assimilate  itself  to  Chinese  customs  and 
standards. 

I  see,  then,  in  China,  so  far  as  the  most  funda- 
mental conditions  are  concerned,  a  far  greater 
similarity  to  the  modern  West  than  to  India. 
But,  of  course,  points  of  similarity  to  India 
5° 


CHINA 

and  of  difference  from  the  West  do  strike  the 
eye.  Like  India,  but  unlike  western  Europe, 
China  is  predominantly  agricultural,  and  the 
bulk  of  her  people  are  peasants.  Like  India, 
and  unlike  the  West,  indeed  to  a  much  greater 
degree  than  India,  she  is  untouched  by  indus- 
trialism. The  era  of  railways,  of  mines,  of 
factories,  is  but  just  beginning,  and  the  im- 
mense resources  of  the  country  have  hardly 
been  tapped.  Like  India,  and  unlike  the 
modern  West,  the  family  is  the  cardinal  point 
on  which  all  her  social  life  and  a  great  part 
of  her  government  turns.  And  this  family 
solidarity,  while  it  fulfils  many  of  the  functions 
which  in  the  West  have  to  be  undertaken  by 
Government,  is  a  very  serious  obstacle  to  the 
introduction  of  western  forms  of  business — 
for  example,  the  joint -stock  company.  Still, 
these  differences,  important  as  they  are,  are 
comparatively  superficial;  and  it  would,  I 
believe,  for  good  or  for  evil,  be  much  easier  to 
westernise  China  than  it  would  be  to  westernise 
India.  The  Chinese  would  only  have  to  apply 
their  attitude  to  life  in  a  new  way;  but  the 
Indians  would  have  to  transform  theirs.  The 
Chinese  are  already  secular,  practical,  matter- 
of-fact  ;  they  require,  to  westernise  them,  only 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

a  new  technique.    But  the  Indians  require  a 
new  spirit. 

Although,  however,  as  I  have  suggested, 
it  would  be  easier  to  westernise  China 
than  to  westernise  India,  the  process  of 
westernisation  has  not  as  yet  gone  so  far  in 
the  one  country  as  in  the  other.  Effective 
contact  between  Europe  and  China  dates 
only  from  the  opium  war.1  From  that 
date  the  activities  of  the  western  powers  in 
China  have  been  continuous,  discreditable, 
and  indefensible.  But  though  the  powers 
have  robbed  China,  have  bullied  her,  have 
interfered  with  her  independence  and  sovereign 
rights,  have  imposed  upon  her  teaching  which 
she  did  not  want  and  trade  which  she  thought 
disastrous  and  immoral,  they  have  so  far  made 
no  serious  attempt  to  conquer  and  annex  her. 
The  servitude  of  China  is  financial;  but  the 
history  of  Egypt  shows  how  easily  financial 
may  pass  into  political  control.  It  may  be  so 
with  China;  the  next  few  months  or  years 
will  decide.  But  meantime  and  up  to  now 
China  is  independent.  The  activities,  com- 
mercial and  other,  of  the  foreigners  have  been 

1  In  spite  of  Mr.  Morse's  apologies,  I  consider  this 
to  be  the  proper  description  of  that  war. 
52 


CHINA 

mostly  confined  to  the  treaty  ports.  And 
though  these  are  now  very  numerous  and 
include  a  number  of  cities  far  inland  on  the 
Yang-tze,  they  are  of  course  but  isolated  points 
in  the  vast  territory  of  China.  And  even  in 
these  ports  the  western  spirit  has  hardly 
touched  even  the  externals  of  Chinese  life. 
The  foreign  communities  build  their  own  cities 
outside  the  native  city ;  there  they  administer 
themselves,  lead  their  own  life  as  in  Europe, 
their  life  of  business  and  of  sport,  and  never, 
if  they  can  help  it,  enter  the  native  city  or  any 
part  of  the  interior  of  China.  The  British 
firms,  who  were  first  in  the  field,  did  and  still 
do  their  business  through  the  medium  of  Chinese 
merchants,  and  have  no  direct  relation  with 
their  customers  in  the  country.  They  never 
stir  from  the  treaty  ports,  and  they  know 
nothing  and  care  nothing  about  Chinese  condi- 
tions except  so  far  as  these  may  react  upon 
their  business.  "  We  see  too  much  of  things 
Chinese  here,"  the  agent  of  a  British  firm  said 
to  me,  when  I  made  some  comment  on  the 
Chinese  city.  And  the  sentiment,  I  believe, 
is  pretty  general  among  Europeans  in  China. 

While  these  conditions  prevailed  there  was 
nothing  in  the  presence  of  the  foreign  traders 
53 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

which  need  have  led  to  any  radical  change  in 
Chinese  institutions  or  ideas.  But  the  con- 
ditions are  now  rapidly  changing.  The  new 
enterprise,  especially  of  Germans  and  Japanese, 
is  sending  bagmen  acquainted  with  the  lan- 
guage all  over  the  interior  of  China.  Oil  and 
cigarettes  are  the  pioneers  of  this  commercial 
invasion.  The  skin-disease  of  advertisement 
is  beginning  to  disfigure  the  face  of  the  country, 
and  German  art  nouveau  appears  in  the  stations 
of  the  railway  from  Tsinan-fu  to  Pekin.  The 
grip  of  the  West  has  begun  to  close,  and  will 
more  and  more  be  felt  in  the  general  dissemina- 
tion of  ugliness,  meanness,  and  insincerity 
throughout  the  empire. 

More  important,  however,  I  think,  than 
commercial  enterprise  in  disturbing  the  secu- 
lar tradition  of  China  has  been  missionary 
activity.  I  did  not,  indeed,  gather,  and  I 
do  not  believe,  that  China  is  in  process  of 
Christianisation  or  will  ever  be  Christianised, 
though  I  have  met  Chinese  Christians  and, 
I  think,  sincere  ones.  But  the  missionaries 
have  been  the  pioneers  of  western  education, 
and  it  is  western  education  that  has  made  the 
revolution.  All  the  new  leaders  have  been 
educated,  first  at  missionary  schools  and 
54 


CHINA 

colleges  in  China,  then  abroad,  mainly  in  Japan 
and  the  United  States.  And  this  education 
has  produced  a  new  and  surprising  type  of 
Chinese.  Nothing  in  my  travels  has  struck 
and  perplexed  me  more  than  this.  China  has 
always  been  regarded  as  the  type  of  the  un- 
changing. If  ever  there  was  a  stable  national 
character,  a  stable  national  mentality,  it 
might  have  been  supposed  that  it  would  be 
there,  in  a  homogeneous  people  of  the  same 
stock,  never  conquered,  or  at  least  never 
affected  in  race,  in  manners,  in  laws,  in  lan- 
guage, by  conquest;  never  interrupted  or 
disturbed  for  centuries  in  their  traditional 
ideas  and  their  traditional  manner  of  life. 
Here,  surely,  if  anywhere,  sudden  revolution 
was  impossible.  Here  change,  if  it  came  at 
all,  would  come  by  slow  degrees,  fighting  its 
way  against  an  immense  and  profound  psycho- 
logical immobility.  But  what  happens  in 
fact  ?  A  Chinese  taken  as  a  boy  and  brought 
up  in  a  missionary  school,  then  transferred 
during  the  impressionable  period  of  life  to 
a  foreign  country  to  complete  his  education, 
returns  to  China  transformed  through  and 
through.  There  is  no  vestige  of  conservatism 
left  in  him.  He  has  adopted  not  only  the 
55 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

manners,  the  dress,  the  speech,  the  very 
intonation  of  a  foreign  country;  he  has 
adopted  its  whole  mental  and  moral  outfit. 
There  is  nothing  in  China  he  does  not  want  to 
transform,  nothing  he  does  not  believe  he  can 
transform.  This  is  particularly  true  of  the 
Chinese  educated  in  America.  I  met  in  Can- 
ton some  of  the  chief  officials  of  the  revolu- 
tionary government,  the  chief  justice,  the 
foreign  secretary  and  others.  I  was  astounded. 
They  were  exactly  like  American  under- 
graduates. Their  whole  mentality,  so  far  as 
I  could  see,  was  American.  They  had  not 
only  the  manners,  the  dress,  the  speech;  they 
had  the  confidence,  the  light-heartedness,  the 
easy  and  disconcerting  superficiality.  On  the 
other  hand,  those  educated  in  England  were 
comparatively  critical,  sober,  and  cautious. 
Those  educated  in  Japan,  I  was  informed,  had 
the  revolutionary  elan  of  that  country;  and 
when  the  second  revolution  broke  out,  the 
students  that  were  in  Japan  crowded  over  en 
masse  to  join  the  revolutionary  troops.  The 
one  student  I  met  from  Germany  looked  and 
spoke  like  a  German.  This  conversion  may, 
of  course,  be  superficial.  There  may  be  under- 
lying it  an  unchanged  basis  of  Chinese  char- 
56 


CHINA 

acter.  But  if  so,  it  is  the  superficial  part  that 
is  active  in  China.  It  is  these  young  men  that 
have  made  the  revolution  and  established  the 
Republic ;  that  are  doing  all  they  can  to  sweep 
away  the  old  China,  root  and  branch,  and  build 
up  there  a  reproduction  of  America.  There  is 
nothing,  I  think,  which  they  would  not  alter  if 
they  could,  from  the  streets  of  Canton  to  the 
family  system,  from  the  costume  of  a  police- 
man to  the  national  religion.  This  attitude  of 
theirs  exasperates  the  foreigners,  who  seem  as 
much  disgusted  and  alarmed  at  the  actual 
appearance  of  a  new  China  as  they  used  to  be 
critical  and  censorious  of  the  old  one.  But  it 
is,  after  all,  very  natural.  These  young  men 
find  their  country  a  prey  to  foreign  aggression. 
They  see  that  the  only  way  to  meet  the  foreign- 
ers is  to  meet  them  on  their  own  ground,  and 
they  have  before  them  the  triumphantly 
successful  example  of  Japan.  It  must,  how- 
ever, be  admitted  that  there  has  not  appeared 
in  China  any  group  of  men  of  the  capacity  and 
power  of  the  statesmen  who  piloted  Japan  into 
the  new  era.  The  young  men  have  ideas  in 
plenty,  but  they  have  no  experience,  and,  it 
would  seem,  no  practical  capacity.  Too  often 
they  have  not  character.  For  it  is,  I  fear, 
57 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

indisputable,  as  it  is  undisputed,  that  many 
of  the  new  officials  and  of  the  new  legislators 
are  corrupt  as  well  as  incompetent.  Certainly 
it  is  remarkable  and,  so  far  as  my  knowledge 
of  history  goes,  unique  that  in  a  great  revolu- 
tion in  a  nation  of  four  hundred  millions  one 
man  only  should  emerge  with  the  capacity  for 
government;  and  Yuan  Shih  Kai,  I  believe, 
will  not  appear  to  history  to  be  more  than  an 
astute  and  tenacious  opportunist.  The  recent 
revolution  has  exposed  the  incapacity  and  the 
lack  of  character  of  the  southern  leaders.  And, 
however  sympathetic  one  may  be  with  the 
revolutionists,  the  question  forces  itself  upon 
one  whether  we  have  not  here  another  demon- 
stration that  old  bottles  will  not  hold  new 
wine;  that  ideas  derived  from  an  alien  civilisa- 
tion may  transform  the  brain,  but  cannot 
penetrate  the  soul  of  a  different  race.  I  sus- 
pect, at  any  rate,  that  in  young  China  there 
is  some  dislocation  between  their  convictions 
and  their  character,  which  makes  them  in- 
effective for  action  towards  ends  in  which  they 
genuinely  believe. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  problem  before  the 
republican  revolutionaries  is  a  vast  one,  and 
one  which  no  country  has  solved  without  years 
58 


CHINA 

of  confusion  and  bloodshed.  European  critics 
are  apt  to  forget  this.  It  took  France  a  cen- 
tury of  successive  revolutions  and  reactions 
before  the  Republic  was  definitely  established. 
Two  revolutions  and  a  series  of  civil  wars  were 
necessary  to  get  rid  of  the  Stuarts  in  England. 
The  surprising  thing  in  China  is  that  the 
dynasty  has  disappeared  with  so  little  effort 
and  so  little  regret.  For  among  all  the  possi- 
bilities of  the  future,  the  one  which  is  univer- 
sally repudiated  is  a  Manchu  restoration. 
Still,  to  get  rid  of  the  Manchus  is  one  thing, 
to  set  up  a  new  government  is  another.  The 
breach  of  continuity  has  beencomplete,  as  com- 
plete as  in  revolutionary  France.  Nothing 
in  Chinese  history  or  tradition  has  prepared 
them  for  a  representative  republic,  and  it  is 
quite  possible  that  it  is  not  under  a  republic 
that  the  new  era,  which  in  any  case  is  inevit- 
able, will  be  best  inaugurated  and  furthered. 
At  present,  however,  it  must  be  admitted  that 
republican  institutions  have  not  been  given  a 
fair  chance.  That,  I  believe,  has  been  the 
weakness  of  the  President's  policy.  Instead 
of  endeavouring  to  gain  the  confidence  of  all 
parties  in  the  National  Assembly,  and  to  get 
all  to  work  together  for  the  common  good,  he 
59 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

seems  to  have  set  out  from  the  beginning  to 
discredit  the  Assembly.  When  I  was  in  Pekin 
the  two  Houses  were  meeting  day  after  day 
and  doing  no  business  because  a  quorum  could 
not  be  obtained;  and  this  was  due  to  the 
deliberate  abstension  of  the  Chin-Pu-Tang 
party,  which  is  admittedly  the  party  of  the 
President,  and  which,  no  doubt,  was  in  his 
pay.  True,  serious  differences  of  policy  had 
developed  between  him  and  the  southern 
party.  He  had  contracted  the  quintuple  loan 
over  the  head  of  the  Assembly  in  defiance  of 
their  protest  and  in  violation  of  the  spirit,  if 
not  the  letter,  of  the  constitution.  But  the 
fact  that  he  did  so  is  precisely  an  example 
of  what  I  should  call  his  bad  statesmanship. 
What  is  worse,  he  was  believed  to  be  privy  to 
the  assassination  of  Sung,  the  southern  leader ; 
and  as  the  facts  have  never  been  allowed  to 
come  out  in  Court,  he  must  continue  to  lie 
under  that  suspicion.  If  the  National  Assem- 
bly hitherto  has  been  impotent  and  futile,  the 
fault,  I  believe,  lies  rather  with  the  President 
than  with  them.1  But  these,  after  all,  are 

1  Since  this  was  written,  the  President  has  dissolved 
all  elective  bodies  in  China,  and  made  himself  an 
absolute  dictator. 

60 


CHINA 

transitory  conditions.  The  fundamental  fact 
is  that  the  revolution  was  accomplished  by  a 
handful  of  men  educated  in  foreign  customs 
and  foreign  ideas,  and  working  with  a  mer- 
cenary army  (for  it  is  clear  that  the  troops  who 
have  taken  part  on  either  side  are  mercenaries 
who  transfer  their  allegiance  from  one  party 
to  the  other  according  as  they  are  paid). 
There  is  no  national  movement  in  China,  for 
there  is  no  Chinese  nation,  in  the  sense  that 
there  is  an  English  or  a  French  or  a  German 
nation.  The  Chinese,  as  I  have  already  pointed 
out,  though  they  have  never  been  divided 
as  India  has,  have  never  been  united  by  a 
common  political  consciousness.  Their  social 
organisation  has  rested  not  on  the  central 
government,  but  on  the  family  and  the  village. 
Government  has  been  a  mechanism  imposed 
from  above  to  make  roads  and  canals,  to  do 
justice,  and  to  collect  taxes.  And  the  com- 
parative isolation  of  China  for  many  centuries, 
the  absence  of  wars  waged  for  very  existence, 
such  as  have  built  up  the  European  system, 
prevented  the  formation  of  national  sentiment 
by  outside  pressure.  The  Chinese  have  been 
the  most  peaceable,  and,  in  many  respects, 
the  most  civilised  people  the  world  has  seen. 
61 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

They  have  not  had,  because  they  have  not 
needed,  a  national  self-consciousness,  and 
they  cannot  improvise  one  in  a  moment. 
There  can  be  no  doubt,  I  imagine,  that  the 
mass  of  the  people  do  not  know  what  the 
revolution  is  about;  and  that  they  welcomed 
it  less  because  it  got  rid  of  the  Manchus  than 
because  it  relieved  them  for  a  time  from  the 
payment  of  taxes. 

It  does  not,  however,  follow,  as  European 
critics  often  imply,  that  China  can  never 
acquire  a  political  sense  or  work  a  constitution. 
Given  education,  a  press,  better  means  of 
communication,  and  in  a  generation  the 
change  might  be  effected.  The  Chinese,  as 
experience  has  now  shown,  are  the  most 
educable  of  people;  and  this,  no  doubt, 
applies  to  the  masses  no  less  than  to  the  hand- 
ful who  have  hitherto  had  the  opportunity. 
And  the  education  has  begun.  In  elemen- 
tary schools  modern  subjects  are  beginning  to 
be  taught;  geography,  history,  elementary 
science,  the  existence,  the  character,  and  the 
power  of  other  nations.  I  myself,  visiting 
a  school  in  a  small  village  on  the  Upper  Yang- 
tze, far  from  all  foreign  influence,  found  an 
English-speaking  teacher  who  had  been  edu- 
62 


CHINA 

cated  by  missionaries,  an  English  spelling  and 
reading  book,  maps  of  China  and  of  the  world, 
and  drawings  of  bacteria.  These  things  must 
be  taking  effect.  And  those  who  seem  still  to 
think  that  the  revolution  in  China  is  a  mere 
flash  in  the  pan,  implying  no  radical  transfor- 
mation, are  likely  before  many  years  have 
passed  to  be  very  much  astonished.  What  may 
happen  politically,  whether  the  government 
be  republican  or  monarchical,  on  the  Ameri- 
can or  the  French  or  the  German  model,  is 
comparatively  unimportant.  The  important 
thing  is  that  the  educational  process  has  begun, 
the  education  both  of  events  and  of  schooling ; 
and  that  to  education  the  Chinese  are  emin- 
ently responsive.  For  good  and  for  evil  the 
old  China  is  a  thing  of  the  past.  The  penetra- 
tion by  western  ideas  has  begun,  and  whether 
it  go  faster  or  slower  it  will  go  far  and  go  to  the 
end. 


PART  III.— JAPAN 

TURNING  now  to  Japan  I  find  here,  too, 
affinities  with  the  West  and  contrasts  with 
India.  Japan  is  the  only  country  I  have 
visited  which  reminds  me  of  what  I  suppose 
ancient  Greece  to  have  been.  This,  at  any 
rate,  is  true  of  externals.  The  costume  of  the 
men,  leaving  bare  the  legs  and  arms,  and  their 
perfect  proportions  and  development,  were  a 
constant  delight  to  me.  The  most  Hellenic 
thing  I  ever  saw  was  a  group  of  Japanese 
youths  practising  jiu-jitsu  naked  under  the 
trees  of  a  temple  garden,  or  by  moonlight  on 
the  seashore.  Again,  the  Japanese  theatre 
must  be  more  like  the  theatre  of  ancient 
Greece  than  anything  now  extant.  The  audi- 
ence in  their  loose  white  robes ;  the  magnificent 
posing  of  the  actors;  the  chant  in  which  the 
text  is  declaimed;  the  dance;  the  choice,  for 
subject,  of  ancient  heroic  legend,  all  these  are 
striking  points  of  resemblance.  And  though, 
as  Mr.  Archer  has  pointed  out,  the  actual 
64 


JAPAN 

form  of  the  theatre  recalls  rather  Elizabethan 
than  Greek  conditions,  the  total  effect  to 
my  judgment  was  much  more  Hellenic  than 
Shakespearean.  Again,  in  Japan,  as  in  ancient 
Greece,  there  is  a  universal  prevalence  of  art. 
The  skill  and  the  taste  still  persist.  Every 
common  thing  is  beautiful,  the  cups,  the  tea- 
pots, even  the  very  toys.  The  houses,  from 
the  aesthetic  point  of  view,  are  the  most  perfect 
ever  designed.  Fineness  of  taste  and  skill  of 
hand  seem  to  be  general,  save  where  the 
western  invasion  has  destroyed  them.  Add 
to  this  the  impression  one  receives  in  Japan  of 
a  people  "  simple,  sensuous,  and  passionate," 
quick  to  laugh,  quick  to  quarrel,  quick  to  die, 
or  kill,  in  everything  intense  and  unreflective, 
and  you  get  a  resemblance  with  the  Greeks 
which  is,  I  think,  more  than  superficial.  The 
points  in  which  the  Japanese  character  and 
creation  are  unlike  and  inferior  to  the  Greek 
depend  upon  their  comparative  lack  of  intellect. 
The  Greeks  were  the  originators  in  the  West  of 
philosophy  and  science,  and  their  literature  is 
as  remarkable  for  its  intellectual  content  as 
for  its  aesthetic  form.  The  Japanese  have 
originated  nothing;  they  took  all  their  ideas 
from  China;  and  their  literature  and  art  is 
65  E 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

curiously  unintellectual.  Their  whole  civilisa- 
tion, indeed,  beautiful  and  passionate  as  it  is, 
is  thin  and  simple  when  compared  with  that 
of  ancient  Greece.  If,  in  a  word,  Japan  is  the 
Greece  of  the  East,  it  is  a  Greece  without 
Socrates,  Plato,  Aristotle,  Sophocles,  Thucy- 
dides.  A  curiously  truncated  Greece!  Yet, 
I  think,  the  foundation,  so  to  speak,  is  the 
same.  The  same  temperament,  passionate 
and  aesthetic;  only  a  lack  of  the  critical 
and  constructive  power  of  mind  which  has 
made  the  Greeks,  after  the  lapse  of  two 
thousand  years,  still  the  living  masters  of 
the  West. 

But  it  is,  of  course,  not  only  with  ancient 
Greece  that  the  civilisation  of  Japan  pre- 
sents important  analogies.  In  institutions, 
and  in  all  those  aspects  of  character  which  are 
affected  by  institutions,  it  was,  until  the  revo- 
lution, an  almost  complete  reproduction  of 
mediaeval  Europe.  Japanese  feudalism  was,  in 
every  point,  similar  to  European,  save  that  it 
was  simpler  and  intenser,  and,  of  course,  un- 
complicated by  the  influences,  ethical,  social, 
and  political,  of  the  Catholic  Church.  If  the 
essentials  of  feudalism  be,  as  I  think  they  are, 
a  hierarchic  organisation  of  society  under  the 
66 


JAPAN 

rule  of  a  military  caste,  and  the  predominance, 
in  the  scheme  of  virtues,  of  those  peculiar  to 
that  caste — courage,  loyalty  to  a  chief,  and 
personal  honour — then  Japanese  feudalism, 
which  lasted  up  to  the  revolution  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  presents  an  exact  parallel  to 
feudalism  in  Europe.  And  its  virtues  and 
qualities  still  persist  in  Japan;  they  are  said 
to  have  been,  and  no  doubt  were,  the  secret 
of  their  success  in  the  war  with  Russia;  and 
they  constitute  the  greatest  distinction  be- 
tween Japanese  civilisation  and  that  of  India 
or  of  China  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  the  West 
on  the  other.  It  is  for  that  reason  that  I  say 
chivalry  is  the  dominant  note  of  Japanese 
civilisation,  understanding  by  chivalry  the 
qualities  fostered  by  a  feudal  regime.  These 
qualities  are  summed  up  in  the  Japanese  term 
"  bushido,"  and  they  centre  about  the  national 
religion  of  Shintoism,  the  essence  of  which  is 
devotion  to  ancestors,  and  in  particular  to  the 
divine  ancestors  of  the  Emperor.  Shintoism 
is  the  true  religion  of  Japan;  and  it  was 
a  sound  instinct  (though,  as  it  turned  out, 
the  policy  prompted  by  it  was  a  failure)  which 
led  the  statesmen  of  the  new  era  to  foster 
Shintoism  at  the  expense  of  Buddhism.  For 
67 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

Buddhism,  though  it  has  had  great  influence 
in  Japan,  as  is  testified  by  the  innumerable 
temples  which  are  the  chief  beauty  of  the 
country,  and  the  tender  and  profound  religious 
art  of  the  earlier  period,  was  really  as  alien 
to  the  Japanese  spirit  as  Christianity  to  the 
European.  The  Japanese  are  not  by  nature, 
any  more  than  the  Chinese,  disbelievers  in  life. 
They  are  active,  sensuous,  ambitious,  at  need 
aggressive.  They  have  to  an  eminent  degree 
the  qualities  of  citizens  and  patriots ;  and  the 
influence  of  Buddhism  has  been  with  them 
more  aesthetic  than  ethical.  Japanese  feudal- 
ism converted  the  Buddha's  doctrine  of  re- 
nunciation into  the  Stoicism  of  the  warrior. 
The  Japanese  Samurai  renounced  desire,  not 
that  he  might  enter  Nirvana,  but  that  he  might 
acquire  the  contempt  of  life  which  would  make 
him  a  perfect  warrior.  In  him,  the  knight 
included  and  swallowed  up  the  saint.  And 
the  Samurai,  meditating  in  a  teahouse  on  the 
beauty,  the  brevity,  and  the  pathos  of  life,  and 
passing  out  to  kill  or  to  die,  is  as  typical  of 
the  Japanese  attitude  to  life  as  the  wandering 
Sannyasin  is  of  the  Indian. 

But   this   civilisation   of  Japan,   so   com- 
plete, so  simple,  so  homogeneous — a  military 
68 


JAPAN 

system  preserved,  oddly  enough,  without 
degeneration,  through  more  than  two  cen- 
turies of  peace,  and  deliberately  secluded 
from  all  influences  from  without  that  might 
have  disturbed  it — is  already  a  thing  of 
the  past.  As  in  India,  as  in  China,  as  all 
over  the  world,  the  aggressive  western  powers 
forced  themselves  and  their  ideals  upon  the 
reluctant  nation.  But  Japan,  a  small  homo- 
geneous, military  State,  inspired  by  a  strong 
patriotic  sentiment,  met  the  advance  in  quite 
a  different  way  from  any  other  nation.  In 
order  to  avoid  being  westernised  by  the  powers 
she  decided  to  westernise  herself.  To  save  her 
life  she  made  up  her  mind  to  lose  it.  The 
system  she  had  cherished  so  carefully  she 
threw  overboard  almost  in  a  day;  and  a 
generation  saw  a  centralised  monarchy  sub- 
stituted for  a  nominal  suzerainty,  the  military 
caste  converted  into  officers  in  a  national  army, 
education  in  science,  theoretical  and  applied, 
substituted  for  education  in  the  Chinese  and 
Japanese  classics,  feudalism  abolished,  and 
industrialism  triumphantly  inaugurated.  I 
know  of  nothing  in  history  analogous  to 
this  extraordinary  transformation  except  the 
earlier  conversion  of  Japan  to  Chinese  ideals 
69 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

and  practice.  I  proceed  to  comment  more 
in  detail  on  some  aspects  of  this  trans- 
formation. 

To  take  first  externals.  In  Japan,  as  in 
India  and  in  China,  but  in  Japan  in  pre-eminent 
degree,  one  is  struck  by  the  rout  of  aesthetic 
taste  before  the  western  invasion.  In  old  Japan, 
roughly,  everything  was  beautiful ;  in  modern 
Japan  everything  is  hideous.  Fortunately,  in 
externals,  old  Japan  is  almost  everywhere  in 
evidence.  It  is  in  a  few  great  cities  that  the 
change  appears.  Tokyo,  for  example,  is  be- 
coming ugly  with  an  intensity  of  ugliness  I 
have  seen  nowhere  else.  The  modern  build- 
ings in  European  style  are  as  meaningless  and 
as  dead  as  all  architecture  in  the  West,  and 
they  have  not  the  compensation  of  that 
kind  of  Egyptian  slave-made  impressiveness 
which  characterises  recent  building  in  western 
capitals.  The  statues  in  the  European  style 
have  a  grotesque  monstrosity  which  makes 
even  the  monuments  of  London  appear  digni- 
fied by  comparison.  The  European  costume 
of  the  official  and  educated  classes — fortun- 
ately the  mass  of  the  people  still  adhere  to 
the  Japanese  style — is  a  model  of  vulgarity 
and  ineptitude.  Japanese  taste  is  altogether 
70 


JAPAN 

disoriented  as  soon  as  it  has  to  deal  with  Euro- 
pean and  American  conventions.  Perhaps, 
as  I  have  already  suggested,  the  taste  had 
really  long  ceased  to  exist,  and  become  a  mere 
habit  with  no  power  of  resistance.  However 
that  may  be,  it  is  fortunate  that  so  far,  in 
most  crafts,  the  old  tradition  still  persists,  and 
Japanese  pottery,  lacquer,  weaving,  and  em- 
broidery are  still  being  produced  not  unworthy 
of  their  artistic  past.  How  long  this  may 
continue  I  cannot  prophesy.  A  general  ex- 
tension of  the  factory  system  would  of  course 
destroy  it.  Some  Japanese,  it  is  true,  are 
aware  of  the  value  of  their  own  traditions  and 
of  the  devastating  effect  of  industrialism  on 
art  and  beauty,  and  may  possibly  make  a 
successful  effort  to  conserve  what  they  still 
possess.  I  confess,  however,  that  I  am  not 
very  hopeful  of  this.  For  among  educated 
Japanese  I  have  met  few  who  seem  to  care 
about  such  things,  and  these  few  were  apt  to 
be  conservative  and  reactionary,  and  without 
much  practical  influence.  The  terrible  prestige 
of  the  West  covers  and  recommends  every- 
thing bad  in  it  as  well  as  everything  good, 
and  the  Japanese,  most  imitative  of  nations, 
seem  to  desire  only  to  be  able  to  say  at  every 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

point  that  they   are   as  good  as  the  most 
advanced  western  nation. 

Turning  from  this,  to  my  mind,  very  im- 
portant point,  to  those  social  and  political 
questions  which  in  the  present  age  almost 
monopolise  public  attention,  the  entry  of 
Japan  into  the  western  industrial  system 
is  carrying  with  it  all  the  consequences 
which  that  system  has  produced  in  Europe 
and  America.  There  is  a  gradual  exodus 
from  the  country  to  the  town,  due  to  what 
is  now  felt  to  be  the  dulness  and  the  lack 
of  opportunity  of  life  on  the  soil,  and  the 
attraction  of  superior  wages.  Pauperism, 
unknown  under  the  old  regime,  is  becoming  a 
problem,  and  though  there  is  no  poor  law  in 
Japan,  there  appears  to  be  need  for  one.  Un- 
employment is  beginning  to  show  itself;  and 
the  factory  system  is  developing  abuses 
similar  to  those  which  disgraced  its  early  his- 
tory in  Europe,  abuses  which  the  Japanese 
have  not  yet  begun  to  combat  by  legislation. 
For  though  there  is  a  factory  law  on  the 
Statute  Book,  it  has  not  yet  been  put  into 
operation,  ostensibly  on  the  ground  of  lack  of 
funds,  really,  as  I  was  informed,  because  of 
the  influence  with  the  Government  of  the 
72 


JAPAN 

great  manufacturers.  The  growth  of  national 
wealth,  in  short,  is  being  accompanied  by  all 
those  evils  of  disorganisation  and  unjust  dis- 
tribution which  constitute  the  political  and 
social  problem  of  the  West.  And  these  evils 
are  intensified  by  a  financial  system  which 
raises  the  bulk  of  the  national  revenue  by 
taxes  on  the  necessities  of  the  poor. 

This  brings  me  to  the  question  of  the  Govern- 
ment of  Japan,  a  system  which  has  been  much 
praised,  but  which  seemed  to  me,  in  its  prac- 
tical operation,  to  be  the  worst  and  most 
ominous  factor  in  the  present  situation. 
Traditionally,  as  is  well  known,  the  political 
and  national  sentiment  of  Japan  centred 
about  the  Emperor.  The  sentiment,  no  doubt, 
was  obscured  during  the  period  of  the  Shogun- 
ate,  when  the  Emperor  was  a  mere  figure- 
head. But  long  before  the  aggression  of  the 
West  produced  the  great  crisis  an  internal 
movement  was  working  for  the  restoration 
of  the  Mikado's  power.  That  restoration 
was  effected  by  the  revolution  of  1867,  and 
effected  by  the  voluntary  abdication  of  the 
Shogun.  And  the  tradition  of  personal  loyalty 
to  the  Emperor,  as  an  actual  descendant  and 
representative  of  gods,  the  tradition,  that  is,  in 
73 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

a  very  intense  form,  of  his  divine  right,  was  an 
asset  which  the  statesmen  of  the  revolution 
were  not  likely  to  throw  away  in  laying  the 
foundations  of  modern  Japan.  When,  there- 
fore, they  made  a  constitution  they  naturally 
turned  for  a  model  rather  to  Germany  than  to 
America  or  France  or  England.  They  made 
the  Emperor  the  centre  of  the  whole  political 
structure,  and  clause  after  clause  in  the  con- 
stitution endeavours  to  secure,  so  far  as  the 
letter  of  the  law  can  do  it,  that  monarchical 
government  in  Japan  shall  never  be  trans- 
formed into  parliamentary  government  as  we 
have  it  in  England.  To  foster  this  feeling 
about  the  Emperor,  the  machinery  of  public 
education  is  brought  to  bear.  On  stated 
anniversaries  the  children  do  reverence  to  the 
Mikado's  portrait.  His  proclamation,  which 
makes  himself  and  his  divine  ancestors  the 
source  and  centre  of  all  the  history  and  polity 
of  Japan,  is  the  text  on  which  all  moral 
instruction  is  a  commentary.  A  deliberate 
attempt  is  made  to  mould  the  mind  of  young 
Japan  to  religious  veneration  for  the  head  of 
the  State;  and  to  this  general  attitude  all 
domestic  and  personal  morality  is  subordin- 
ated. The  Emperor  is  put  forward  as  the 
74 


JAPAN 

head,  not  only  of  the  political,  but  of  the  social 
and  ethical  structure  of  Japan.  It  is,  however, 
interesting  to  note  that  in  spite  of  the  posi- 
tion thus  given  to  the  Emperor,  he  does  not, 
in  fact,  appear  to  govern  in  person.  Until  re- 
cently he  governed  through  and  by  and,  it 
would  seem,  in  subordination  to  the  remark- 
able group  of  men  called  the  elder  statesmen; 
a  group  as  much  unknown  to  the  constitution 
as  the  Cabinet  is  in  England,  and  owing  their 
position  to  the  confidence  of  the  sovereign, 
and  to  their  prestige  and  influence  among  the 
officers  of  the  army  and  navy.  It  is  these 
men  hitherto  that  have  governed  Japan.  Their 
ideal  is  bureaucratic.  They  have  never  de- 
sired or  intended  that  the  representative 
element  in  the  constitution  should  become  the 
governing  element,  or  that  public  opinion 
should  reach  that  stage  of  development  in 
which  it  can  really  dictate  to  ministers.  This 
policy  they  have  pursued  with  the  ruthless  and 
intelligent  pertinacity  which  appears  to  belong 
to  the  Japanese  character.  There  is,  in  fact, 
in  Japan,  whatever  the  letter  of  the  law  may 
be,  very  little  liberty  in  the  matter  of  organising 
and  directing  public  sentiment.  Trade  unions, 
though  permitted  by  the  law,  are  prevented  by 
75 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

police  regulation  from  directing  their  activity 
to  the  raising  of  wages  or  shortening  of  hours, 
by  combination  and  the  threat  of  a  strike.  I 
met  a  man  who  had  been  imprisoned  for  some 
months  for  encouraging  men  on  strike,  and 
whose  whole  activity,  in  a  social  settlement  he 
had  attempted  to  found,  had  been  suppressed 
by  the  authorities.  I  heard  of  another  who 
had  been  imprisoned  for  five  years  for  making 
some  comment  not  regarded  as  respectful  on 
a  public  distribution  of  alms  by  the  Emperor. 
In  the  face  of  this  suppressive  activity  of  the 
executive,  the  representative  House  seems  to 
be  powerless.  Parties  are  still  grouped  about 
persons,  not  about  principles,  and  the  desire 
for  office  and  the  emoluments  and  advantages 
it  may  bring  with  it  seems  to  emasculate 
leaders  and  followers  alike.  The  very  pro- 
fessors in  the  Imperial  universities  feel  that 
they  are  muzzled  on  all  subjects  touching 
public  affairs;  for  though,  of  course,  they 
would  not  be  ostensibly  punished  for  their 
opinions,  they  know  well  that  advancement 
depends  on  pleasing  those  in  power.  The 
hand  of  the  bureaucracy  lies  heavy  on 
Japan;  and  if  it  secures,  as  it  seems  to  do 
in  many  departments,  efficiency  of  adminis- 
76 


JAPAN 

tration,    it    secures    it    at    the    expense    of 
liberty. 

This  system,  however,  of  government  by  a 
clique  of  nobles,  backed  by  the  prestige  of  the 
Emperor  and  using  the  forms  of  the  Constitu- 
tion, is  hardly  likely  to  continue  indefinitely. 
In  the  first  place,  the  peculiar  sanctity  attached 
to  the  Emperor's  person  can  hardly  survive 
in  a  people  that  is  daily  becoming  more  and 
more  penetrated  by  the  western  spirit  of 
rationalism  and  criticism.  The  Japanese, 
even  the  Japanese  masses,  will  not  long  be 
able  to  maintain  the  fiction  that  a  man  is  a 
god.  The  very  existence  of  a  constitution  is 
a  contradiction  to  the  principle  of  divine 
right,  as  much  in  Japan  as  once  in  France, 
and  now  in  Germany.  For  a  constitution 
implies,  if  it  does  not  affirm,  the  opposite  prin- 
ciple of  the  right  of  the  people.  And  however 
much  it  may  be  formally  provided  that  an 
elected  assembly  is  only  to  be  consultative,  all 
history  shows  that  it  will  end  by  making  a 
bid  for  supremacy.  So  far  as  I  could  ascer- 
tain, the  movement  in  this  direction  has 
already  begun  in  Japan.  The  chief  political 
leaders  seem  to  have  paid  at  least  lip-service 
to  the  doctrine  that  a  minister  ought  to  com- 
77 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

mand  a  majority  in  the  representative  House. 
The  fall  of  Prince  Katsura's  ministry  was 
brought  about  by  the  pressure  of  public 
opinion,  aided  by  rioting  in  the  capital;  and 
it  is  noticeable  that  in  that  crisis,  for  the  first 
time,  the  name  of  the  Emperor  was  dragged 
into  political  controversy.  The  narrow  basis 
of  representation  in  Japan,  which  confines  the 
electorate  to  the  upper  middle  class,  will  no 
doubt  delay  a  democratic  evolution.  But  the 
modern  history  of  France  and  of  England 
shows  that  such  barriers  generally  disappear 
once  public  opinion  is  effectively  aroused. 
There  are  signs,  I  think,  that  it  is  stirring  in 
Japan,  and  its  manifestations  are  likely  to 
be  the  more  violent  the  more  it  is  denied 
the  normal  outlet.  In  a  word,  the  Japanese 
statesmen  are  endeavouring  to  combine  an 
autocratic  system  of  government  with  an 
industrial  civilisation,  a  free  press,  and  an  edu- 
cation on  western  lines.  This  I  believe  to  be 
as  impossible  in  the  long  run  as  it  is  to  keep 
water  in  the  liquid  state  after  the  boiling 
point  is  reached.  Government  follows  social 
evolution;  and  industrialism,  though  it  may 
favour  plutocracy,  can  never  favour  the 
domination  of  a  military  caste. 
78 


JAPAN 

In  this  connection  I  may  briefly  observe 
that  the  educational  system  I  have  described, 
whereby  loyalty  to  the  Emperor  is  made  the 
pivot  of  morality,  seems  to  be  producing  on 
the  youth  of  the  country  the  opposite  effect 
to  that  intended.  They  react  violently,  I 
was  told,  from  this  governmental  pressure; 
they  suspect,  not  without  reason,  the  sincerity 
of  their  teachers,  and  emerge  from  the  system 
with  a  bias  rather  sceptical  or  democratic 
than  monarchical. 

My  impression,  then,  of  modern  Japan  is 
briefly  this:  I  find  a  people  moulded  by 
centuries  of  feudal  institutions  and  feudal 
morality,  homogeneous,  patriotic,  and  with 
their  natural  self-reliance  and  pride  intensified 
by  the  rapidity  and  ease  with  which  they 
have  assimilated  the  teaching  of  western 
civilisation,  and  raised  to  a  white  heat  by 
their  victory  over  Russia.  At  the  same  time 
I  find  that  their  very  success  is  undermining 
the  basis  on  which  that  success  rests.  The 
extension  of  industrialism  means  the  substitu- 
tion of  industrial  for  feudal  psychology  and 
ethics,  the  disappearance  of  the  old,  simple 
cult  of  the  Emperor,  which  made  it  a  matter 
of  course  to  die  for  him,  and  a  dislocation  of 
79 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

all  social  relations,  which  has  as  its  immediate 
effect  pauperism,  unemployment,  unrest,  and 
discontent.  Add  to  this  a  heavy  burden  of 
debt,  incurred  mainly  by  the  Russian  war, 
pressing  on  a  country  not  rich  in  natural  re- 
sources, and  a  population  too  numerous  to  be 
supported  in  comfort  on  their  own  territory; 
a  governmental  regime  which  discourages  and 
suppresses  popular  association  and  popular 
agitation;  and  a  financial  system  which 
throws  the  burden  of  taxation  on  the  poor. 
The  past  and  the  present,  oriental  tradition 
and  western  culture,  are  at  grips  in  Japan 
more  intensely  than  in  any  other  country; 
but  in  Japan  alone  the  issue  of  the  conflict  will 
be  determined  by  the  people  themselves,  not 
by  the  pressure  of  foreign  powers. 


80 


CONCLUSION 

As  a  result  of  this  survey  of  the  present  condi- 
tion of  the  principal  countries  of  the  Far 
East,  I  find  myself  face  to  face  with  one  of 
the  fundamental  issues  of  modern  civilisation. 
The  East,  it  is  clear  to  me,  has  developed 
types  of  life  having  beauties  and  advantages 
which  we  have  lost  in  the  modern  West.  The 
great  mass  of  the  people  live,  as  they  always 
have  lived,  on  the  soil.  They  have  a  hard  life, 
a  life  exposed  to  great  physical  disasters,  a 
life  at  the  mercy  of  nature.  But  also,  it  is  a 
life  in  nature ;  and  though  the  people  may  not 
be  consciously  alive  to  the  beauties  and  sub- 
limities of  the  natural  world,  I  cannot  doubt 
that  they  are  aware  of  them  and  derive  from 
them,  if  not  happiness,  at  least  a  certain 
dignity  and  breadth  of  outlook.  We  ought 
not,  on  this  point,  to  generalise  from  our  own 
agricultural  labourers,  and  infer  a  necessary 
degradation  as  the  consequence  of  life  on  the 
soil.  It  is  the  peasants  we  have  destroyed, 
those  who  lived  on  the  land  when  England  was 
81  F 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

"  merry  England,"  in  whom  we  ought  to  seek 
an  analogy  for  the  life  of  Oriental  peasants; 
and  these,  I  suspect,  have  a  solidity,  a  sense 
of  the  fundamental  realities,  and  the  possi- 
bility of  a  really  religious  outlook  on  the  world 
which  it  will  be  hard  to  parallel  among  city 
dwellers. 

Again,  throughout  all  the  East  there  has 
been  a  development  of  culture  in  some  respects 
more  important  and  higher  than  that  of 
the  modern  West.  Under  culture  I  include 
religion,  literature,  and  art.  And  I  regard 
these,  not  as  being,  in  themselves,  the  purpose 
of  human  life,  but  rather  as  signs  that  that 
purpose  is  being  fulfilled;  that  men,  having 
satisfied,  without  too  much  exertion  and  ex- 
haustion, their  material  needs,  are  living  a 
life  of  rich  and  fine  feeling,  are  contemplating 
nature  and  their  own  lives  and  purposes  in 
rituals,  pictures,  poems,  and  songs.  This  kind 
of  culture  the  East,  I  think,  has  always  had  in 
a  finer  sense  than  the  modern  West. 

On  the  other  hand,  for  causes  which  it 
would  be  interesting  to  try  to  trace,  the  East 
has  fallen  far  behind  the  West  in  what  I  may 
call  the  machinery  of  life,  and  in  all  that 
kind  of  intellectual  effort  and  achievement  on 
82 


CONCLUSION 

which  the  command  of  that  machinery  de- 
pends. The  West  has  invented,  if  not  science, 
the  applied  sciences;  and  in  so  doing  has 
made  the  externals  of  life,  for  the  well-to-do 
at  any  rate,  and  perhaps  also,  when  all  is  said, 
for  the  poor,  immensely  more  comfortable 
than  they  have  ever  been  before.  It  has 
made  it  possible  for  a  much  greater  number  of 
people  to  live  on  a  given  area ;  but  at  the  same 
time  it  has  almost  destroyed  the  beauty  of 
life  and  the  faculty  of  disinterested  contem- 
plation. It  is  not  really  creditable,  in  the 
West,  to  be  anything  but  a  man  of  business, 
in  the  widest  sense  of  the  term;  to  live  in  any 
way  which  cannot  be  shown  directly  or  in- 
directly to  increase  the  comforts  and  facilities 
of  life  or  diminish  its  detriments.  This,  of 
course,  is  especially  true  of  the  new  countries, 
where  there  are  no  traditions  and  no  ancient 
culture ;  but  it  is  becoming  increasingly  true 
in  Europe  too.  Now  I  do  not  myself  think 
that  this  attitude  is  merely  contemptible,  and 
convicts  the  West  of  sheer  materialism.  I 
believe  that,  under  all  this,  hardly  conscious 
of  itself,  is  a  great  impulse  which  may  fairly  be 
called  spiritual.  The  West  is  doing  more  than 
it  knows  it  is  doing;  it  is  endeavouring  to  lift 
83 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

the  general  level  of  material  life  in  order  that 
there  may  be  more  leisure,  more  education, 
more  capacity  and  opportunity  for  that  im- 
passioned reflection  on  life  which  is  the 
essence  of  what  I  mean  by  culture.  The  pre- 
occupation of  the  West  with  material  things 
does  not  really  imply  materialism;  and  it 
necessitates  an  intensity  of  life,  a  development 
of  brain  and  will-power  hitherto  unknown  in 
the  history  of  the  soul. 

Still,  the  pace  at  which  we  are  living,  the 
competition  of  every  kind,  the  intensity,  the 
fatigue,  the  nerve-strain,  involve  a  dislocation 
of  the  moral  equilibrium  of  life.  The  East 
lives,  and  has  always  lived,  at  a  lower  tension ; 
but  it  has  kept  a  better  balance  between  the 
active  and  the  contemplative  faculties.  It  is 
in  that  balance  that  I  see  civilisation.  The 
West  will  have  to  recover  it,  and  I  used  to  think 
that  it  might  learn  to  recover  it  from  the  East ; 
that  it  might  take  from  the  East,  and  the 
East  from  it,  what  each  required,  and  that  a 
synthesis  might  result  which  would  be  more 
comprehensively  human.  My  journey  to  the 
East  has  somewhat  shaken  my  belief  in  this 
possibility.  Civilisation  is  a  whole.  Its  art, 
its  religion,  its  way  of  life,  all  hang  together 
84 


CONCLUSION 

with  its  economic  and  technical  development. 
I  doubt  whether  a  nation  can  pick  and  choose  ; 
whether,  for  instance,  the  East  can  say,  "  We 
will  take  from  the  West  its  battle-ships,  its 
factories,  its  medical  science;  we  will  not  take 
its  social  confusion,  its  hurry  and  fatigue,  its 
ugliness,  its  over-emphasis  on  activity."  So, 
also,  I  doubt  whether  the  West  can  say,  "  We 
will  take  from  India  its  contemplative  and  re- 
ligious spirit;  but  we  will  maintain  our  own 
pre-eminence  in  the  material  arts,  our  popular 
and  democratic  institutions,  our  science, 
theoretic  and  applied."  The  West  may 
receive  a  stimulus  from  the  East,  it  can  hardly 
take  an  example;  and  the  East,  taking  from 
the  West  its  industrial  organisation,  will  have 
to  take  everything  else. 

I  should  look,  therefore,  for  a  redress  of  the 
balance  in  the  West,  not  directly  to  the  im- 
portation of  ideals  from  the  East,  but  to  a 
reaction  prompted  by  its  own  sense  of  its 
excesses  on  the  side  of  activity.  And  on  the 
other  hand,  I  expect  the  East  to  follow  us, 
whether  it  like  it  or  no,  into  all  these  excesses, 
and  to  go  right  through,  not  round,  all  that  we 
have  been  through  on  its  way  to  a  higher 
phase  of  civilisation.  In  short,  I  believe  that 
85 


CIVILISATIONS  OF  THE  EAST 

the  renewal  of  art,  of  contemplation,  of 
religion,  will  arise  in  the  West  of  its  own 
impulse;  and  that  the  East  will  lose  what 
remains  of  its  achievement  in  these  directions 
and  become  as  "  materialistic  "  (to  use  the 
word)  as  the  West,  before  it  can  recover  a 
new  and  genuine  spiritual  life. 


THE    TEMPLE    PRESS,    PRINTERS,    LETCHWORT1I,    ENGLAND 


SOUTHERNR3SIK  J!  Callf°'n.a 


'•'  "Ml  Hill  HIM    Ml   ||   |[|  ||  HI  JIIJ 

A    000119751     6 


Universi 
South 
Libr 


